How bad is IB?

[heech]

Hi all,

I hear a lot of complaining about IB... horrible customer service, buggy platform, throttling on back-fill, service is often unavailable after-hours... But then at the end of the day, seems like a huge number of people *use* IB.

I'd really like to hear some feedback who use IB every day for active auto-trading, and are satisfied/content with the service. How much of the complaints I read about are coming out only because of the popularity of IB?

I'm using TDA at the moment, and don't feel a huge urge to change... I'm satisfied with what TDA has given me. But I do like some if IB's potential for expansion (different equity markets, better margin/costs). I do wonder too if IB's execution wont' be significantly better than TD Ameritrade.

[ctrlbrk]

Hey heech!

I use IB.

Their customer service is terrible from what I have read, although I've never needed it personally so do not know.

Their execution speed/technology is what got me on-board. I think TWS is so-so, I really just load it and then use Ninja anyway so who cares. Their website has all the features I need.

I also really enjoy having the extra security on the account with the wallet-sized security card (I forget what they call this) where you have to input numbers on the card when you login.

Do not use them for data. Everyone complains most about their data. I use IQfeed and have few complaints.

Their servers have been down a few times for a few minutes which is very annoying. But it is has never taken money from my pocket, only perhaps limited me from making/losing more by entering a new trade during that period. But I think a lot of brokers have this problem and simply hide it by giving you terrible fills or execution delays, where IB is upfront and announces it via a pop-up bulletin.

I've read horror stories about them liquidating peoples accounts due to margin calls. They don't do margin calls on accounts with less than 100k (me). Just yesterday they sold 100 shares of a position I had due to RegT margin requirements that I had failed to maintain when a position I was carrying changed 20% in one day. It was my fault, they liquidated without notice. I am not mad, they had every right to do it. Some people would be furious, but I think that is not rational.

IB works great with Ninja. IB works great with Blocks.

I am satisfied with them overall.

Good hunting!

[heech]

Thanks for sharing!

Wow, login security card does sound interesting. I have similar tokens for eTrade and HSBC. But how does that work with automated trading..? Doesn't that mean you basically can't log in unless you're physically in front of the machine?

The idea of forced liquidation without much prior notice does sound a little scary, especially since I'm usually in volatile stuff that moves 20%-30% daily at the drop of the hat... good to hear a (more or less) positive story, in any case. Doesn't sound like enough to convince me to change from TDA, though.

You might be able to tell from my other thread that I'm starting to look at ThinkOrSwim... it seems like an interesting choice, but the brokerage doesn't seem very informed when it comes to handling margin. It's not compatible with Ninjatrader either, but their platform looks awesome enough that I might be willing to re-code...

[ctrlbrk]

The security card entry is only required when you login via the website or when you launch TWS. I launch TWS once before I go to bed, when I also re-launch Ninja for live trading. So I only enter the code once a day.

Let me know how thinkorswim goes or if you decide to switch, etc.

[T2020]

I'm currently with IB and am looking for a different broker . I want to trade
the S & P mini ,but each contract will cost you 6188 $ day or night with IB .
Your buying drops dramatically compared to brokerages that charge a 1000 $
or less . There charting is a joke . Do a google search with ( brokerage
comparison on slippage )

I also have an account with Think or Swim . There main knowledge is on options ,but are pretty much full service broker . They don't have much interest in having a API that shares data with other softwares , so it's pretty
much what you see is what you get . The charting is pretty good IMO . Nothing I could really fault them on . hth's .

[ek1688]

Hi
I plan to open account with IB to trade E-Mini S&P using NT.
Yes, IB requires margin of $6188, please advise if there is better option with other brokers.
I understand NT with Zen-Fire data feed is fast, how is it like with IB data feed?

[T2020]

AMP Futures . 400.00 $ http://www.ampfutures.com/ Check them
out . See if it meets your needs .

[ryker]

Hi,
I'm using NT with esignal and IB and I'm quite happy with this combo, had no major problem so far and don't mind the high margin as I don't use a big leverage.
I trade automatic systems on futures without any problems.

[billitin]

ek1688: just IB data feed probably won't satisfy your needs as it's very basic, due to data volume, availability limitations and slowness. I guess IB positions itself only as a broker, but not as a market data provider. If you're looking for extensive data sets or trading overnight consider a specialized data provider.

[ek1688]

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies.
I'm in contact with Mirus Futures and AMP Trading. However, AMP Trading does not seem to reply on chat lines but one receives many marketing emails.
Both brokers request one to open account with clearing houses who are also brokers, I wonder what their roles then?

[ctrlbrk]

What a difference a day makes.

Last few days IB has really got to my last nerve. Constant errors, API problems, disconnects from Ninja, server farm being down, etc. Several times I went to enter/exit a trade and NT told me after about 10 seconds that TWS was disconnected. This cost me dearly.

So, I am now looking at AMP + Zen. I've been working with Dan and he seems on top of things right away in emails back and forth. As for the marketing crap, just tell them to stop sending it and that should solve that.

I am still doing some testing. One concern has been that Ninja support keeps telling me Zen doesn't support historical data, yet AMP/Zen tells me it does and I can't get a clear answer as to why the disagree with each other. I had a problem one day of not being able to retrieve any historical data with Zen, but it is now resolved (not knowing what changed in between). More time will tell.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hi ctrlbrk,

Zen-Fire itself does not support historical data. You will retrieve historical data from our server when using Zen-Fire. The server can provide historical minute and tick data, but no daily data.

[heech]

ctrlbrk,

Yikes, that's scary. I'm actually in the final steps of funding my IB account... (god they can really drag it out. Because I'm looking for portfolio margin, I have to fund > $100k... which requires about 10-12 business days over ACH.) And now, you're making me wonder again.

I haven't had any significant crashes with TDAmeritrade.. they've been reliable, and that seems to be the most basic request you can have for a broker.

I do have gripes with TDA, or at least NinjaTrader's integration with it. A number of very serious bugs have popped up over the last week with NinjaTrader's interface to TDA... to NT's credit, Ray is helping me trying to drill down and get some bug fixes in there. But for now at least, TDA is also completely unusable.

[alexmaster]

IB is very bad broker, who even can still trader's money. Be carefull with them, i strongly recommend to fine a reliable company.

[billitin]

I haven't seen any fraud on IB side since I'm with them for over a year, and the cost of trade is very low for the variety of securities they offer, but their data feed is not the best around.