I have been trading with IB for a couple of months now. In general I am very happy with them. The commission structure is great and the executions are generally pretty good. The major gripe I have is with their front end software. It is not as flexible as say Real Tick or Redi Plus. It is very difficult do trade directly from a level II screen. And the GUI is not very good. Does anyone else feel this way????
The software is fast and very reliable (the applet). As you cannot beat the price, i think it is unrealistic to demand something far-improved from IB. I am happy with it, except when the quotes are slow. The software itself is ok for me.
I'm very satisfied with IB. As for their software I use it strictly as a trading platform. I use eSig for quotes/Level II/etc. I agree that the low commissions justify a simple front end. Actually their software is quite easy to use once you get used to it. I have all my core daytrading stocks and some daily scans loaded so all I have to do is click on the bid or ask.
Their software is ecellent if you want quick execution ANDconfirmation of your orders with real time updating of your account.Until shown otherwise I will say IB does this job the best.
The software is the best! I think the quote feed has to be the worst I have experienced. IB needs to get this someway somehow corrected. I know IB is working on the quote problem. Catoosa
Oh yes, their quote feed is horrendous. You don't know how many times the bid/offer doesn't jibe with eSignal's. Also last week their quotes were off badly for 2 days; they had INTC at 4 and change with a bid/offer in the thousands. It's a great broker but I'd go elsewhere for data and charting.
I just want to add that I only trade the emini futures so I am very comfortable relying upon my data provider for quotes. As a former stock trader I remember level 2 execution being much more complex so stock traders should only value my advice for order execution. for that IB is absolutely great.
The cool thing is that if you don't like it, you're free to develop (or have developed) an alternative front-end, using their APIs. As long as you don't mind routing all your orders to BEST, that is :-( For my fairly high volume trading style, in listed stocks mostly, I think the TWS app is great.
<<The major gripe I have is with their front end software. It is not as flexible as say Real Tick or Redi Plus. It is very difficult do trade directly from a level II screen. And the GUI is not very good. Does anyone else feel this way????>> Welcome to the wonderful world of Java!!! The biggest technological hoax ever foisted on an ignorant American press and its public. Bwhahahahahahahaha!!! Die SUNW die!!! But seriously... Anyone can see that a decently written Windows program would be 900% better than that Java crap, at least for Windows users. Do you get less bugs with Java? hmmm? More functionnality? Bwhahahaha! There is hope though. The guys at Quote Tracker are working on supporting IB. Yaowzah!
I can't think of anything to say but: You don't know what the hell you are talking about. Go get a CS degree, or maybe just go and write programs for a living in something other than VB, and come back and we will talk. nitro