Didn't you read what IB's PR said? IB expects you to be confident to stick with them and grow your account and will even consider purchasing additional shares down the line. How dare you leave??!!
@JSOP I see nothing wrong with IB's promo. Other companies do it all the time. Existing members pay the full price, but future members pay less in a promotion. It has happened with NinjaTrader for example. When I bought their lifetime license years ago, it was a grand. Now they are offering it to new customers for like 800 bux or so on occasion. It has happened with the NRA. The Easy-Pay for Life mode was whatever it was, 500 bux, at 20 bux per month. But later on they offered the same plan to new EPfL payers a $100 discount. *shrugs* It is the cost of being a trailblazer?
Just because other companies do it doesn't mean it's right. People commit murders all the time. Does that mean it's correct? I guess you didn't have a chance to read my long post so I will summarize it for you. This is basically a Reverse Pyramid scheme. Its shares and the wealth that it represents that IB is offering to the new clients was not created out of a vacuum; these were created from the wealth that IB generated by charging its existing and/or previous clients high commissions, unjustified fees and charges and spending low cost to forward inferior service. The wealth that those shares come to represent belongs to the old existing clients; it's the existing clients that created these wealth by getting jipped by IB. Like I said before, this is not robbing Peter to pay Paul; no it's taking what Paul earned to pay Peter. Shares of a company are NOT the same as products. It's part of a ownership of a company. These new clients, by doing nothing, owns part of IB. What they do or say or do not do or say now directly impacts the IB, no matter how small. And it has potentially a growth potential that the existing clients helped create in the first place and are now forever denied the opportunity to be part of. This is unfair treatment and consumer discrimination. With any products, the reduction in value over time is normal as a result of advancement in technology that directly reduced its production cost or through depreciation in value due to competition. This has nothing to do with old and new clients. Any old or new clients would receive the same price if they buy them now. If an existing client never had that product before even though it's been a client of that company for 10+ years and now he wants to buy the same product, he would still get the discount price too. But with shares it's different, it's been offered at the company's discretion. The company is deliberately denying existing clients shares that it's offering to new clients. In addition, a company's product does not belong to the client; they were created by the companies themselves and belong to the company. But if you are going to offer a piece of a company's ownership to clients, then that means the company belongs to the clients then all clients regardless of when they became the company's clients are entitled to be the owner. You can't just offer some ownership to some clients and not others; that's like I said before consumer discrimination and creates a conflict of interest. I am surprised you would see a company's ownership as the same thing as its products. And btw you bought the lifetime license for NinjaTrader??!! Eeeeewwwww!! I had been a client of Ninja Trader before but even if I have a chance to buy its lifetime license at a discount now, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole!! Feel so sorry that you bought the lifetime license that's obviously depreciated greatly in value. It's not the cost of a trailblazer; it's the evidence of getting screwed, yet again with IB.
he's made a couple of good points mind you. If cost of new customer acquisition >= $200, how much is the cost of churn? how come loyalty is discounted to $0?
the cold truth gents is that IBKR is the biggest winner of the highly likely ban on sale of order flow being considered by the SEC. this practice was never allowed in the EU and I don't see why the US customer should suffer from regulatory shortfalls. Cash-rich Robinhood may adapt by offering free commissions and DMA regardless (and make their money on margin instead) but Schwab who is IB's main competitor will get a serious hit to their 2019 business model redux.
I reckon $0 commission and DMA will put proper pressure on IB to lower their fees. Let's hope the market goes in that direction.
RH might offer an extremely low commission if PFOF is banned as it should but don't think they will be able to offer free commission, not on a sustainable long-term basis. Even if they do, they will charge in some other ways just to keep a "free commission" front, but it would still be cheaper than IB due to its different cost structure. So nothing much would be changed for IB except its old clients who trade stocks and/or options, which should be the majority of the clients would leave to join RH who rewards them with shares of the company.