Is anyone trading forex via Interactive Brokers? If so would you mind listing the adavantages/disadvantages over say a forex only broker (e.g., Alpari). Also can some please how I determine position sizing via IB. Im used to calculating via mini lots ($1) but I dont see that option. I already have an IB account. Thanks, Steve
IB doesn't use lots. You buy (and sell) whole units. For example, 38000 Euros, or 38001 Euros if you prefer. Whatever you want. Their accounting, including overnight financing, does give some traders fits, however. I'll leave it to others to point out all of the pros and cons. Certainly their spreads are small (+) but they charge a commission for trades (-). But to me the biggest advantage is transparency. They display the best bid/ask offered by their liquidity providers and pass your order on when it can be executed. They do not take the other side of your trade. A reasonably high percentage of my limit orders are executed with price improvement, frequently offsetting the commission. I don't think you will find this to be common with most forex brokers.
Use IDEALPRO and the minimum size is 25,000 (which is $2.50/tick EURUSD) plus a minimum RT commission of $5.00. As Hurricane mentioned, their accounting is quite different from other brokers and can be difficult to get accustomed to.
I have questions too: What are spreads like on majors during important releases (NFP, FOMC minutes, GDP etc.) ? Do they stay constant although wider or anything goes (20,30, 100 pips ) ? Can you trade safely at market at all other times ? What are executions on stops like during big releases ? Any games ? There used to be a lot of games by their liquidity providers, would withdraw from the market, post bogus offers that did not receive an execution and so on.
I've seen >10, but don't really trade the news so don't pay real close attention. Yes - vast majority of my orders are market. I don't do enough around news to give you a good opinion on this. I have not run into this. If a person is making the switch from nearly any other broker to IB, the biggest confusion for a person will be the accounting. Issues that are normally automatically taken care of by the broker (e.g. transferring funds into base currency when a position is closed) are the responsibility of the account holder. The primary reason I am with IB is for SIPC coverage.