most ib bashers will be minimal posters and noobs without clue ib not perfect , but dont listen to the clowns herer
I have been using IB (And their TWS) for 14 years now. TWS is a robust, powerful & fast trading platform, no question about that. Although I am having some disputes/disagreements against IB price cap policies for futures recently, that's something else, since I won't for sure recommend them as a futures broker, so if you are trading futures, I won't recommend them at all given the flaws they have in their price caps algorithms right now. If you trade stocks, ETFs & equity options, then all I can say is that they are solid. To answer your question, TWS is a very good trading platform. Get deeper into the TWS configurations which affect your orders/trades/positions/portfolio, you have to, it will take you no more than 2-3 days to understand those. If you intend to use TWS for decision making or any type of analysis, I don't recommend this at all. Their charting is basic, historical data is fine & accurate, but don't count on more than that. Fundamentals & News are also not the best breed, it's not about the quality of the data, it's rather the interface and how data can be displayed & manipulated. Use a separate specialized service for analysis & decision making (Paid of course). TWS is a trading platform, not an analysis tool (They are trying, but they just can't put it all together correctly from a user perspective).
It isn't just futures where IB's price capping algorithm rears its ugly head. I have had numerous problems with price capping for stocks during recent market volatility. I have complained incessantly to IB about not being able to control my risk and they just don't listen. You can remove price caps from individual securities but you have to call in and currently the wait times for calls can stretch to 30 minutes or more. If you need to get out of a position quickly, you are simply f*cked. So if you don't mind not being able to control your risk when it really matters, IB is a great broker. If you need to get out of a position quickly, well you are sh*t out of luck sometimes.
Maybe you are right. I never experienced any price cap issues with stocks (Maybe because I don't trade stocks frequently or actively). But for sure the flaws in their price cap algorithms is going to cause them to lose a lot of customers. I also spoke with them with no avail. They are deaf on their ears. I am in the process of filing a complain with FINRA now, because I strongly believe that they are applying their price caps in-appropriately.
Can anyone confirm that arman555 is wrong on this , that IB displays wrong numbers, because this a scary, how it would be possible ?
Thank you for your reply, it's nice to have questions answered by the broker. Actually i am finding TWS classic more eye friendly. I have two question: 1- if i am in Dubai or Bangkok, i did open account with IB in US. is that an issue or i should open account with IB at other regions, would it make any difference? 2-It seems i can find pair USD.THB in FX trader. IB provides certain pairs or any pairs can be traded? 3-Does IB transfer back fund to account No. and the bank address where it received the funds from day one ? because i remember 15 years ago, my broker refused to transfer fund to any other bank in other countries. 4- which other countries market other than US, which allow trade more than 4 times a week and don't have day trading pattern requirement 25K ? Thank you
Thank you sir ...but seems many here not agree that IB is good for analysis and research , they just use for executions which you mentioned it's not best platform for speed trading.
I will say this... I used it years ago as a back up platform pretty much when they dropped contract prices by more than 50 percent to their competitors. in think it was the late 90s. I loved it during high volume times... their 4 times a second Idea allowed me to trade during some very high volume sell offs when my other quote vendors were super delayed. However I recently re opened account... I love that it feels rock solid... but its not that intuitive or flexible for me. I have forgotten more than I remember.... I can't even create an open orders page that only shows pending orders. I hit the plus button to add a page and I see lots of choices... none of them seem to aptly named or do what I want. I will figure it out. maybe I have to go back to classic view... So I enjoy using it for reliability and access to so many products... but I also have to spend a lot of time with it to make it do what I want. However on the whole... I really like the platform and company... because they seem fair. They are not pulling me in with one low price on something and then killing me on everything else.
I believe you can have multiple platform. Not sure if you can route trade directly through your platform to IB broker but I believe it’s doable.