why do you WANT to be a trader? list to yourself, what you expect to gain from it, and include a line in that list, regarding whether or not you expect respect from your family or inner circle for your new job or work endeavour as a trader..... also, why are your profits being eaten up with a $28 round turn commission structure? either you have not stated full or complete facts or you're not looking at this in a professional / trader's mentality, but a disillusioned investors dreamy mentality... why not consider option trading for the protection, leverage and magnification or your paultry balance that you're working with... perhaps you can achieve your objectives there... it really doesn't matter whether you stay with whom you are with, change to IB or Tradestation or any other broker until you come correct with your objectives in an honest manner.... to me, it seems you haven't identified WHAT your objectives are... also, some of the best advise comes from threads like ET, not as others have suggested otherwise
You are either trolling or you have no fundamental understanding of trading or investing. By you logic you seem to expect the growth of your $5000 to have something to do with IB. IB is definitely not geared to supporting "traders??" like you. You will be most disappointed by the response when you call IB support to question why your $5000 hasn't grown. I would strongly suggest that you look to spread betting, eTrade or something like them to help you. In fact if you try Schwab I see that they offer "Fact-Based Guidance" which may be helpful to you. Also in my 8 years that I have been with IB I can honestly say that the platform has never made a profit for me. If you do find a platform that makes a profit for you, please post here because I would be very interested in it. Please heed Wayne and Brandonf trader nik and balda and stay with Scott. You will be much happier and we will not have to see another "Oh IB is so terrible thread". Good luck and be sure to tell us all how it turns out for you.
I would like to point out that its now 10k to open an account at IB not 5k. I feel thats its worth it though merely as a tool for doing research and building systems. You can open it with 10k, withdraw all but a few hundred dollars and use it to test strategies in the excellent paper trader they offer. At the same time you can chart every market known to man for peanuts per month and try out new ideas and systems on it. Im not suprised people wonder if there entirely honest in the way they execute trades since when you get into the nitty gritty of trading you find a lot of deceptive practices by the exchanges themselves not the brokers such as moving the bid and ask just as you need to execute causing slippage. Anyhow I think that for the money they are hands down as good as you can find....
I agree 100% - No BS. However, if you are one to look for excuses as to why your trade was not profitable, stay away.
IB is great. Used them on and off for the past few years, now my primary brokers. Only brokers I know can try pretty much every thing. Very stable platform, haven't experience 1 crash. Many 3rd party add on.
The issue of how stupid are you. What kind of an imbecile asks an inflammatory question like that for 'its' first post?