The platform is TWS. IB is just the broker. I don't think anybody has serious issues with IB, the brokerage. Some guys don't like the platform, which is TWS. If you are already using DAS Trader you can use it with IB. I can't, because it won't run on Linux. Stuck with TWS but I don't find it to be all that bad. Certainly not impossible to use. If you are a WinDOHs user, you have more options.
Thank you for the clarification. Is TWS fairly easy to use even for a newbie trader? And how is IB as a broker? One reason I'm frustrated with Fidelity is because they never have any shares to borrow whenever there's an obvious good short opportunity.
No, I wouldn't say it is easy to use. That is, it is not a simple app. It is really busy. Lots of stuff to do and tweak. Even if you have experience trading, you would still want to paper trade for a while, to figure out how to do all the stuff you need to do, and customize it to your needs and preferences. I am still figuring out new stuff on it. But it is not impossible to learn. I have only the faintest familiarity with TOS, the only other platform available to me since I am a Linux user. So I can't really compare ease of use with other platforms. And as a newbie you will want to spend a month or two paper trading anyway. Conventional wisdom says several months. So I wouldn't sweat it. I don't normally trade on the short side very much. I think I have short traded once, in live trading. So I can't really rate IB for short availability. But most brokers will sometimes have a hard time lending you stock to short, depending on the stock and the condition of the market. A lot of the good short opportunities you see are seen by a thousand other traders. That could make demand outstrip supply, possibly. And low priced or low float stocks are going to be a problem shorting. Often short selling is restricted by the exchange.
Thanks. I'm going to download the demo first and check it out. If you don't mind me asking, why don't you just switch to Windows? I get that Linux users tend to be dedicated to their platform, but is it really worth limiting your options like that just because you don't prefer Microsoft?
Security. I am handling MONEY with my computers. WinDOHs is an inherently insecure OS. It is closed source. It has a gigantic back door built right in to the system. It has an ineffective user/file privilege system. It requires drivers to use practically any piece of hardware you hook up to it. It is for profit, run by a predatory juggernaut of a company that uses bullying tactics on PC makers and vendors to ensure that even if you don't use their OS, you have to pay for it anyway. It uses a huge chunk of that money to pay for the advertising that they use to brainwash the people who pay for it. When Windows 8 came out I decided I had no more use for WinDOHs and besides I was sick and tired of dealing with all the antivirus, antimalware needed to use it, and the how vulnerable even a properly protected WinDOHs system is. The biggest most dangerous hacker to your Windoze system is Microsoft. They reserve the absolute right to do anything they want to your system whenever they want for any reason that suits them with or without your permission or even notifying you. It is in the EULA. Read it. Even Mac is more secure. Most distributions of Linux do not even have a root account by default. Instead you use the sudo command. If a piece of code or an attacker cannot get to root, there isn't very much that they can do to your system. Good passwording and the built in encryption, combined with a bit of sensible computing pretty much ensure that your Linux machine will not be a money funnel from you to someone else. That other OS is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Linux is more flexible, and more powerful. It is open source. That might sound like a bad thing but it is actually a very very very very very good thing, security wise. Security through obscurity is a total fallacy. Open source enables anyone to examine and experiment with the source code, and help make it more secure, more usable, more powerful. Every user is a potential developer, if he has the skill set and the inclination. Talking about a superior OS that is free. Ever wonder why Linux has so little (basically, none) advertising? Cause there is no revenue stream to tap for it. A few companies on the fringe make money, mostly through tech support and implementation, but Linux itself is free. The few paid distributions are even free, you just don't get the support package or the closed source 3rd party addons. It's not about being on Team Linux. It is about having a better and more secure operating system instead of paying for an inferior, even dangerous one. So why don't I switch to WinDOHs? Because I can't, if I want to enjoy reasonably secure computing. Plus I don't want to support Microsoft's robber baron business model. I used Windows from 3.0 up through W98, XP and W7. MSDOS before that. Briefly switched through Linux which at the time was still a bit too geeky for me, OS/2 Warp, which IBM dropped support for just when it was starting to get really popular, BEOS, which never amounted to much, and ended up back with Windows. Skipped over ME and Vista, for sucking so badly. Then W8 came out and enough was enough. They justified an upgraded version by changing stuff that didn't need to be changed, but did basically nothing to improve the system and secure it. W10 I am sure is no better. I wouldn't know. You can keep W12 when it comes out, too. There will be no W11, probably because it already sucks too badly. There is only one way I would ever switch back to Windows, and that is if they went open source and developed a system that was better than Linux. Fat chance.
There's a whole lotta fake news here on this thread First we have someone who should know better saying you cant scalp stocks on TWS, when there are a zillion ways you can , and have been for decades Then we have a linux goon ranting about security on Windoze Anyone here know a single trader that got hacked using Win ?
Matt said about latency...is IB doing something about improving on latency, quality of datafeed? Everyone on the net has complained about it...To add to the problems, say someone trading in Mumbai on NSE Mumbai Exchange (India), his IB server is located in Hong Kong....