In that situation, call in your orders. Any broker will waive the commish if online access is down. As to futures margin issues -- wrap up your trading in an LLC and put that inside the IRA.
yea agree... and, for me, much of the problems are related to relying too much on very low cost real time market info and low cost trading (within retail brokers... market/quote/charting info nor brokerage services are really low cost, you will pay in other ways). The lesson learned is 1) pay for a quality charting/news/quoting system, its well worth it 2) use the LLC and a good direct access platform with broker for clearing only
I traded with IB for 15 years but kept having trouble with 25 K and Pattern Day Trading rules........... got pissed and closed my account. Then after a few weeks I decided to reopen a new account. I did and found the new platform just wasn't as good....a lot of difficulty with OCO orders. Then after a week of trading I got a $265 bill.....as they said I had checked something when I opened the account that enabled 100 symbol lines on the TWS. They wouldn't talk to be about it at all..........I had checked it and the money was deducted from my account......even though I had a rep. at the time assisting me and the call was supposedly taped..................So I said goodbye to them .....this time it's permanent. And I am glad as I am now working with Ninja and their Dome platform for entries is truly much better. And for a day trader that is so very important.
I don't know what is wrong with all this people. Just because IB offers cheap commission and that's why we have to fall in love with such an unpredictable broker ? IB has stone age platform, the trade doesn't execute on time, I mean slippage . So why fall in love with IB come on guys . This is called Greed. Go and span out, I moved to TD-ameritrade. commission is expensive so what. If you make 1 tick or 2 ticks then stay with Ib. when you make 20 ticks just paying 8 bucks commission is ok. you get great programmable platform with TOS. F**? and forget about IB. I will never go back to IB.
TD is expensive for sure, but it depends how much trade you make per month. IF you trade 3-4 trades/day I would recommend self directed IRA.
I was forced to switch from IB due to a new employer and preclearance restrictions (I can't use IB easily because they allow stock trading -- I can only use futures only brokers). I ended up at Gain futures (daniels introducing broker) trading an IRA through a self-directed custodian (Millennium Trust). Gain doesn't increase margins for IRAs so I am able to trade without dealing with margin problems which became a problem for me at IB a few times a month (briefly, but not fun to deal with). Side note I had used Equity Trust as a custodian in the past but they so messed up my account I am dealing with it over a year later -- despite closing the account AND them transferring the money to another custodian they STILL are billing me, and still think they have some of my money and no amount of explaining and showing them proof can convince them. Gain also uses the Openecry API so you can automate trading similar to IB.