Post
by edward kim » Mon Jun 30, 2003 8:55 am
Hi Damian,
I was just about to start posting a sequence of threads of different firms that I have used when I saw your thread. I'm currently trading with Interactive Brokers, so I'll list everything down here:
1. I haven't seen anyone's commissions lower yet.
2. If you don't generate more than $30.00 commission in one month, they charge a $10.00 fee (free, if more than $30.00 which is usually not a problem.) I haven't put on any trades since May, and I don't think the monthly fee is a big deal while I wait.
3. I set up five tabbed screens to track al the free quotes and tradeables:
indexes: e-mini dow, s&p, nasdaq, hang seng, all ordinaries, AIG commodity index
bonds: e-mini and full 30, 10, 5, 2-year, eurodollar, agency
naturals: e-mini crude, natural gas, gold, silver, broad wool (Australia)
forex: globex and IDEAL spot for AUD, CAD, EUR, CHF, JPY, HKD, BP, MXP, NZD, Brazilian Real, Russian Ruble, South African Rand
stocks: regular, OneChicago and NQLX single-stock futures
4. Most other non-free quotes and access to foreign exchanges charge about five to ten dollars a month in there local currency. Spain, France, London, Switzerland, Germany, Italy.
5. The IB system shuts down approxmately for half an hour to one-and a half hours at approximately 830-930PM PST. You can't login to the platform at that time.
6. GLOBEX is not that liquid for the naturals and the bonds contracts at night, and sometimes there is no bid, nor offer, or BOTH! I haven't pinned down the liquid times exactly, but everything seems pretty active beginning around 530AM PST. The currency and index contracts see to always be pretty good: not that bad of a spread most of the time. The thing about IB and getting quotes from GLOBEX and A/C/E is that you can get quotes (if you know the symbols) for things like mini-beans, wheat and corn because they trade overnight electronically, but you can't place a transaction through IB to trade them. See how many quotes you can get to track everything in real-time.
7. Downloaded statements from the web: last 20 days, and last 22 monthly statements (I think.) You can also get daily emailed statements. You need to be careful and audit your statements: your account will be correct dollar-wise, but the statements sometimes show incorrect P/L's for the individual trades. They are trying to fix this, but who knows when it will get done.
8. People answering the phone are often curt. Be prepared to ask efficient questions. Only one guy I talked to is very patient, but he doesn't know as much as the other people there.
9. Make sure your pc has lots of memory. I have a very old pc, but it has 312MB RAM on it, and it works fine. The ideal is to have a very fast chip, xDSL or cable, and at least 512MB RAM. The IB platform uses a 1.4 JRE that works kind of funky sometimes - probably because of my pc specs.
10. Real-time account value and margin requirements are available in a drop down menu.
11. Transactions are pretty fast because it's direct-access.
12. Some of the margins are unusually low - I think it's like $475 for NZD, and $700 for AUD and CAD. They are definitely encouraging active trading.
13. If you trade a foreign futures contract (like the Hang Seng), some of your account will be converted into Hong Kong dollars to cover the margin. You have to be careful especially when you trade something like the Sydney All Ordinaries: you might get hit on the index AND the currency exchange rate.
14. During regular trading hours, your margin requirement usually gets cut in half, because the system doesn't distinguish between a day trader and an overnight holder of positions. Near the close, the margins pop back up to the normal initial and maintenance amounts.
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I moved from Tradestation for several reasons:
$99.99 monthly "data" fee is overpriced.
Futures accounts are separate from equities (which is stupid)
Can only test one commodity or stock at a time (Since I was thinking about buying Veritrader because it was similar to my own system: after 20 months, it comes out to the same price.)
If you want to put on several positions on the same day, the system will only allow you place three opening transactions in a single day - even if they are DIFFERRENT stocks (I have different accounts, so some accounts have less than 25k in them and I am subject to the PDT rule.) I called them about this and complained, and they didn't know the rules. At IB, they go by the book: three day trades only if it's the same stock ticker, and SSFs are NOT included (I think.)
Commissions are higher at Tradestation than IB.
I'm pretty happy with IB, except that I can't trade the meats, the grains, and the softs. No heating oil, no forex crosses, no dairy, and no platinum. I'm thinking maybe Castle Trading might help there, so I'll start my next thread on this firm.
Edward
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