I've made good money from Interactive Brokers over the years, and despite their horrible charting and order entry, the broker as a whole is by far the gold standard. While I will likely return to prop in the near future, most of my money likely will be stashed with IB in some form. I've also seen IB's reps patiently refute all manner of nonsense from the rabble here, and I commend them for that. Def, you deserve a round on many traders here, me included. This thread will eventually get hijacked by the local lunatic here (1000 iterations of "cold"), but before that happens, I'd just like to throw in my hat. Thanks for keeping my cash secure.
I will agree they are a great firm and the only problem I have ever really had is with my charts randomly disconnecting but otherwise I feel very safe having money there.
10 years ago when i started to trade it was such a big help to have a broker with such low costs around. thank you ib revolutionizing the brokerage industry and helping me to become a trader! the only thing i don´t like is the comission schedule for low priced stocks, especially canadian stocks, hope they change this soon but overall ib is top notch!
For me, in my 3 years there, their famously bad customer service has never been an issue because I've never needed customer service. Maybe that's because I know how to read, and familiarize myself with the platform, and because I don't trade at the bleeding edge of my margin. If there's an option for Canadians that has the protections afforded by IB, I'd give them a try. IB commissions aren't the cheapest but I sure as hell was happy they had my money when the markets were tanking.
There customer service has greatly improved in the last 4 years. They even have a special trained cs team, so to improve relations with customers even more so and avoid past complaints. I would say they should improve leverage levels for forex, 2.5% is one of the highest in the market. Not that I would risk that much, but there auto-liquidation would kick in anyway.
I too think IB is great . . . The interface is the pits, but that's OK. Ultimately IB is going to put the other brokers either out of business or eat into their margins . . . Or maybe the market will consolidate around IB as the high-volume/low margin option and SCHW or AMTD at the other end. Whatever happens, I don't think Tradestation or Etrade are going to be independent much longer. http://stockcharts.com/scripts/php/candleglance.php?AMTD,SCHW,ETFC,TRAD,IBKR|D