It's probably a matter of lots of customers, like some of us, pulling funds from their accounts. Also the stock tanked big time today on fears of their solvency, which of course they feel are baseless. But then there was the reality of BSC saying everything was fine only days before their total collapse. In this market you just don't know what to think. And the people here that are saying everything's cool, no problem, may be echoing the comments of some of those that bought BSC earlier last week.
Thanks. This is one of the most useful posts I've seen in regards to all this. I was wondering what happened with Refco although one guy said he only recovered 33% of his money after 2 years I think it was. Did you get your money from the SIPC? How long did it take and how much was involved? Thanks.
I don't think you should worry about "getting" your money. IB's universal accounts are completely different than what happened in unsegregated accounts at REFCO. For me (I submitted my withdrawal essentially at the day's low, should of been the perfect tell ) If the shit was really hitting the fan; I didn't want the possibility for any delay on these funds. Can you imagine getting anyone at customer service if IB/Timber imploded . Even in the worst case scenario I didn't imagine "losing" any money. IB's security and risk controls are the main reason I deal with them (I hope these words don't come back to haunt me. I should be more concerned with C). I will be wiring it all back soon enough.
All this fear & panic thing is turning self-perpetuating, everyone should just remain calm and go about their business as usual, because everyone making withdrawals, & wild, false claims just adds un-necessary fuel to already over-exaggerated fire. Influencing the perception(whether true or false) of 3rd party risk of a company does have a impact on that company's value, bear sterns was well funded until everyone pulled the mat from underneath them at the same time, thus perception ultimately took hold and killed a asset, a little funny how things have gone don't think, fed sets up a 200bil fund days before this comes out, a number of huge hedge funds pulled their entire billion dollar portfolios from bear within hours of each other, geez wonder who was short this thing, JPM gets a 50bill+ risk-free-fed-backed arbitrage kind of a deal, BSC shareholders are told to grab their ankles and get the soap......Hell, BSC building headquarters which it owns is worth 1.5bil and JPM is going to pay a couple of hundred million for the entire group? WTF.......Yeah this shit is rigged but that doesn't mean you should panic and withdrawal your funds from your bank/broker because the street has cornerned & taken down one house.... As Buffett says: I try to be fearful when others are greedy and I try to be greedy when others are fearful............
I've said it before (and one of IB's reps pooh-poohed it), but I'd feel a lot better about IB if they placed our money with A-rated banks. Citigroup? I don't think so. Who eats the loss if one of IB's banks go under, IB or its customers? I think I know the answer to that one...
Thanks. This is one of the most useful posts I've seen in regards to all this. I was wondering what happened with Refco although one guy said he only recovered 33% of his money after 2 years I think it was. Did you get your money from the SIPC? How long did it take and how much was involved? Thanks. ########################### REfco and REfcoFX are different story ...
I was looking at some of what Cramer was saying in the following article. Interactive Brokers might suffer a similiar "run on the bank" scenario just as Bear Stearns did a few weeks ago. Cramer thought that it was time to get your money out of Interactive Brokers. https://secure.thestreet.com/a/offe...852/weekly-roundup.html?puc=_tscrti2&PID=null