Information about Interactive Brokers

Hi,
I am a beginner trader - I have traded mostly on scottrade for the last two years. I want to do some spread trades on options. Maybe like 5 contracts per month on SPY, I was looking at IB and they looked good.
Question is - they keep saying they are for professional traders - which I most definitely am not with 5 trades a month, are their charges higher for traders like me? Some other problems which I am failing to see? Is there someone else who is a better broker?
Any guidance will be great,
Thanks,
Celedus

 

You have to pay exchange fees for the data if you do less than $30 in commissions.

 

Thanks,
what do you think about MBT then? What is a good platform (cheap as well) for a beginner like me, who wants to slowly ramp up?
Thanks again!

 

MBT is unreliable and has an amateur platform. i highly recommend IB.

 

IB is unrealiable now as well, they are both in the same boat, in my opinion.

MB has the standard direct access platform, while IB has something unique. If your a pro, you'll really appreciate the way that IB's platform is set up, after you learn it--it's excellent.

MB has a nice simple platform, but IB offers nice spread trade tools.

 

I had scottrade account before too. Actually I had account with almost every brokers. Now I am with IB. Go with IB. If you pay $30 a month, you won't need to pay $10 data fee. You will go over $30 after two months. The money that you save in commission is more than $10 that you might pay. I was also thinking that I might not pay $30 commission some months but now every month, I pay $500 a month for commission. Definitely there are also some other good brokers out too but I had IB for 18 months and I am happy. you can open an account with 2K but go with over 25K so you can daytrade. The other good thing about IB is that if you get margin call, they don't send you a letter,they liquidate right away that in 99% of the time will be in your favor.

 

50 cent

I would be happy to have a discussion with you about the reliability of MBT. Before we do I want to confirm that you are a customer and an active one at that. I don't mean anything derogatory by this but in order to have a constructive discussion I want to ensure that we are discussing current issues as opposed to some growing pains we admittedly encountered as we brought new systems online.

Regards,

Steve

 

" go with over 25K so you can daytrade " Is it only for U.S stocks ? Can we daytrade on non-U.S stocks less than 25 K account with IB ?