Last I checked, their commissions were way too high for their service to be seriously considered by most active traders. Also, you hardly ever see anyone on ET who isn't exclusively forcused on equities or equity index instruments, though there do seem to be a few people trading currencies, and I seem to recall the brief eruption of an oil futures thread. Nary a mention of grains or bellies or beans... For most of us, only the equities-oriented brokerags or prop firms are relevant. IB may be a special case, as a brokerage, but not in terms of its ET-using clientele.
I used to have Lind Waldock as my futures broker. Service excellent. You can call 24 hours a day. Good floor representation in SP & grains. Terrible in currencies. The biggest issue was the commissions were to high for active ES trading, which i eventually focused on. Now I use IB.
I trade only the big SP contract. I'm hoping that firms like IB will get Lind and others to bring down commissions for electronic trading. Tks, gnome
If you want to trade grains you need to go to the floor. Leasing a seat is not expensive and the big secret is the options on grain futures are fairly active with good commercial participation. Alot of traders make their money off of options.