Anyone use Interactive Brokers?

[forexman]

I've been using TD Ameritrade for many years and am used to their system. Wondering if many are using IB? It appears IB transaction fees are a lot less than Ameritrade's. I've gone onto their website a few times to demo and it appears to be much more complicated. Does it just take a few trades to get used to it?

[LoboNoches]

I've been using TD Ameritrade for many years and am used to their system. Wondering if many are using IB? It appears IB transaction fees are a lot less than Ameritrade's. I've gone onto their website a few times to demo and it appears to be much more complicated. Does it just take a few trades to get used to it?

If your talking stock Zecco Trading is reliable and cheap if talking Forex .I have used FX Micro with no issues

[chux03]

I switched over to IB in January and at first, when I saw their Trader Workstation, it WAS a bit intimidating. But after using it since then I admit to being COMPLETELY HAPPY with my choice. You're getting a REAL TIME connection to the markets where you can see active shares trading in REAL TIME, just like one of the "big boys" probably use. If you have a high speed internet connection IB is ALL THE BETTER!! Wait till you experience that for the first time.... and you realize what you have right there in your hot little hand. :)
One suggestion I would make and that is to put in for a Margin Account as soon as you can. That way money is credited to your account after a trade IMMEDIATELY and there's no waiting 3 days for the account to reconcile like a regular cash account. It also will give you money ON LOAN FROM IB so that you can buy stocks, though most would rightly recommend AGAINST doing that. I admit to using my Margin Account to buy SLW when they were at $6 something and then paying that back through those share sales when they were considerably higher....I DID GOOD but I was VERY careful too. I bought some shares OTC of a small PGM company recently and the workstation showed the share price at say 0.085 a share. When I made a buy, the price was 0.0900 and though I really didn't understand the OTC dynamic(s), I DO NOW.
Anyway, now that I've used it these past few months and even though I don't consider myself a trader, I couldn't be happier using Interactive Brokers. The real time connection of their Trader Workstation AND their LOW trading fees are where they REALLY SHINE. And I see by your handle that you may be into FOREX?? From what I hear, you can't do any better than IB if you're into FOREX trading. As they say, you're come to the right place....but you'll need that Margin Account for FOREX trading.
Good luck!!

[forexman]

Chux,
Thanks for taking the time for the informative post. Another reason I feel like IB may be the way to go is I need access to the Canadian market so I can trade the many mining companies that trade only there.
Thanks for the tip on opening a margin account, I have that as well with the other 2 brokers I currently use.

[chux03]

Oh, you're welcome!!

One of the newsletters I get talks about the "Cbone", the Canadian dollar, so that's about the extent of my FOREX knowledge and that's from following it through him. FXC is the one FOREX based stock/trade I watch....

[forexman]

I take it the newsletter you are referring to is "gracelandupdates"? I also subscribe to that newsletter.

I am playing around on IB's demo right now and for some reason I'm just not getting it. I put in a buy order (limit) on GLD at 96.93. It was trading right around there at the time (maybe 1 or 2 cents higher). Now the price is 96.27 and I'm still not filled. What am I missing? Why wouldn't it be filled if the currect ask price is so much lower?

[forexman]

Chux, I used to day-trade the Forex. You think the silver market is manipulated, I could write a book on all the crap the broker did on my Forex account. I decided to quit while I was still ahead. Made pretty good money doing a straddle trade on the non-farm payroll report the first Friday of each month. The broker finally quit honoring the stop-loss even though their web site said they did.

[forexman]

OK, now I've put in an order to buy 100 of SLV. In the last 20 minutes or so the bid/ask hasn't wavered from 12.71/12.73. My limit order is at 12.73 and still is unfilled. Going over to the "last" column it is 12.71. I feel like a retard, I've been trading for 20 years and just not getting this system.

[chux03]

Ya, it took me awhile too. And I was just doing something easy like buying a few shares of stock. You're dipping into the FOREX wars right off the bat....good luck!!
Hey me too on the Graceland Updates!! I wish I would have found that guy a year or two ago. Out of all the newsletters I get, I've learned the most about the art of the trade from Stewart Thomson. He's probably taught me more than anyone or anything else about how to trade, especially precious metals. I like his quote: "Gold is the LOWEST risk investment in the world." And I can imagine some looking in on this to be thinking someone here's....nuts. Gold...a LOW RISK INVESTMENT?? The way he trades IT IS!! And that's what the benefit of a subscription to www.gracelandupdates.com will get you. Your teacher will be a retired professional Merrill-Lynch commodities trader and though he offers no financial advice, you'll get access to how this guy makes the trade. And just like the bankers do.
Anyway, wait till you get their little code card in the mail to be used when you're logging in. It's quite a setup. Are you transferring assets to IB from someplace else?? The reason I ask is that's what I did and when I first logged on after the transfer I could see my stocks there plain as day and that kind of helped get me going. I haven't ventured into FOREX land there yet.....that would be SCAREY. :D But I wanted to...kick the tires so to speak. I think I'll just stick with something tame like silver and gold stocks. :D HA!!

[LoboNoches]

Tips for consideration.Forex is way different than stocks or commodities.When gold is up look for the aud/usd to rise,when oil is up look for the cad/usd,when commodity index is up look for the nzd/usd to rise.Never trade the news yes you can make alot but it can backfire tremndously and with leverage that hurts.Stick to just a few currency pairs and get used to them.Never trade weekends stick to mon-thur during the london session if possible more volitivity.Good luck hope this helps if you didnt know this already.Also if you or anyone reading this posts wants training and education on forex go to babypips.com the site is incredible for newbies as i was.I made quick cash and got out before i got greedy .Currently i don't have the funds but when i do i will play some more

[forexman]

Actually, I was just looking to trade stocks on IB. Maybe some options here and there. I was just trying to buy some shares on their demo and was struggling. I guess I'll continue playing around on their demo before I wire in funds.

chux, I definitely enjoying reading gracelandupdates.
However, I have never received any code card and I have been subscribing for 2-3 months.

[LoboNoches]

Actually, I was just looking to trade stocks on IB. Maybe some options here and there. I was just trying to buy some shares on their demo and was struggling. I guess I'll continue playing around on their demo before I wire in funds.

chux, I definitely enjoying reading gracelandupdates.
However, I have never received any code card and I have been subscribing for 2-3 months.


Oops sorry about that as far as stocks I use Zecco.com $4.50 per trade

[chux03]

The code card comes from IB. Sorry about that. That will be coming in the mail. It's unmarked and it's the first time I've used such a system. I can see where if you use more than one computer to do your trading it would be a great way to POSITIVELY i.d. you at login. And that there's (really) only one of you logged on to IB and trading at a time on that one account. My card was late in arriving and they were ready to cut me off until I called them back and mentioned that they should have tried sending it to my mailing address instead of my physical address. Then they apologized and overnighted me a card the next day. It's unmarked, so I just leave it next to my computer as I'm the only one that uses this one. Anyway, so I've been trading away.....though I haven't done much so far this week as everything's kind of....sideways.

Stewart Thomson of www.gracelandupdates.com has given me a new way to trade and I wouldn't bat an eye other than to say that I saw almost immediate results for the better in the few trades that I make. I find myself not really looking too much at average share prices instead of groups of shares bought at xxx price and then patiently set your sell points on those same group of shares and trade when your price hits. For instance, the highly volatile and fast moving SKF. I started buying shares at the 52 week low and have watched that fall to a new low but have been buying all the way down nonetheless. And I don't PLOP down all my $$ and buy my complete position all at once either like I have done in the past, thanks to him. That's a BIG NO-NO in the stock trading/buying world. I have under 100 shares and I only buy in groups of 5 maybe 10 shares IF it's low enough. My last buy was 10 shares at $59. Looking at my IB Web Trader that says my average share price for my SKF holding is at $78 a share. BUT....I can trade those shares purchased at $59 and sell those when the price hits $70 AND MAKE A TIDY 18.6% PROFIT on that one trade. My next SELL point will be at $80 and another 10 will get sold and I'll keep do this until either I'm sold out of SKF with a NICE 20something% profit and the highest price I need is $110 to $120 a share. Something that's entirely possible with this stock.

Anyway, buying when something is going down and then selling into strength when it's going up is something that I wasn't doing too much before. And apparently not many others do that either. But now when I dabble with my GoldMoney holding I made money there by converting silver into gold when gold was priced low and when I buy and sell precious metal shares in my brokerage account and setup my trades in a like manner the results in both places are easy to see. In fact, I've bought a journal where I can write down EVERY trade and the details about dates of buying, selling, price paid, price sold, profit all of that. Instead of looking at racking up that one big hit, I've managed several small little victories such as the 21.6% 3 day SKF trade, the 11.5% in 4 days AUY trade and the 19.5% in 4 days SRS trade and that's in the last week since 4/21. YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH SUCCESS and heck....it's kind of fun too!!!! :D

[anisia]

If you get a broker that dont mean that you-ll have luck and incrase your money .in our economy is very risky . try to be very carefull about that , and think twice .

[m.palmer1@verizon.net]

Anybody using Trade Station? If so,comments?

[jhnsmith978]

Yeah, You guys are right..The Forex market is a very complex and irregular market as such but you can trade easily through Managed Forex accounts.
What you guys think about this??
Forex (http://www.cashbackforex.com)