Hello guys! I will introduce you to Interactive Brokers today. Interactive Brokers attracts active traders with per-share pricing, an advanced trading platform, a large selection of tradable securities — including foreign stocks — and ridiculously low margin rates.
Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.’s founding member has completed its 41st year as a Broker-Dealer with consolidated equity capital of more than $7 billion.
Interactive Brokers conducts its broker/dealer business on over 120 market destinations worldwide. In its broker dealer agency business, IBKR provides direct access (“online”) trade execution and clearing services to institutional and professional traders for a wide variety of electronically traded products including stocks, options, futures, forex, fixed income and funds worldwide. Interactive Brokers Group and its affiliates execute over 951,000 trades per day.
In this Interactive Brokers review, you will receive all the answers to the following questions: Is Interactive Brokers scam or good forex broker? What are the account types of the broker? What are the trading conditions such as spreads, leverage, and minimum deposit? Is Interactive Brokers regulated?
Regulation
Regulation of Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut and has over 1,400 employees in its offices in the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Hong Kong, UK, Australia, Hungary, Russia, Japan, India, China and Estonia. IBKR is regulated by the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, FCA and other regulatory agencies around the world.
Regulated in numerous major financial centers globally, Interactive Brokers is known for its competitive commission rates, and today offers retail forex to Eligible Contract Participants (ECPs) in the US and most other regions around the world. The broker offers 115 currency pairs, over 4,200 CFDs, and thousands of exchange-traded securities.
Account Types and Spreads
Account Types and Spreads
Interactive Brokers’ trading conditions are pretty good – they include tight variable spreads, low commissions, 22 order types, positive price corrections through the SmartRouting system, etc. Keep in mind, though, that the average slippage is a tad high – 1.8 pips.
Transparent Volume-Tiered Pricing
Their low broker commission, which decreases depending on volume, plus exchange, regulatory, and clearing fees.
In cases where an exchange provides a rebate, they pass some or all of the savings directly back to you.
Fixed Rate Pricing
Charges a fixed rate low commission per share or a set percent of trade value.
Includes all exchange and regulatory fees.
For US stocks, ETFs and warrants, the transaction fees are passed through on all stock sales
Their tight spreads and substantial liquidity are a result of combining quotation streams from 16 of the world’s largest foreign exchange dealers which constitute more than 60%1 of the market share in the global interbank market.
This results in displayed quotes as small as 0.1 PIP. IBKR passes through the prices that it receives and charges a separate low commission. They do this in the interest of providing a transparent pricing structure instead of marking up their quotes and charging nothing in commissions as is the practice with many forex brokers. Tiers are based on the combined Monthly Trade Value of Spot Forex trades.
Trading Platforms
Client Portal
Your one-stop destination to check quotes and place trades, see account balances, P&L and key performance metrics, funding, reporting, and more. Click “Ask IBot” to get quotes, place orders, find information and much more. IBot supports both text and speech entry
SUITABLE FOR:
New clients; advisor clients who want a clear, understandable, real-time view of their accounts; traders and investors who prefer all-inclusive, easy-to-navigate convenience with 24/7 access.
Desktop TWS
Their flagship platform designed for active traders and investors who trade multiple products and require power and flexibility, TWS includes all of their most advanced algos and trading tools and offers a library of tool- and asset-based trading layouts for total customization.
SUITABLE FOR:
Traders and investors who want to take advantage of the full IBKR offering, especially high-volume, global traders and those who require in-depth news, technical research and risk analysis tools
Trading Products
Ther clients have access to over 120 market centers in 31 countries where they can trade stocks, options, futures, forex, fixed income, and ETFs – all from a single Integrated Investment Account.
Their trading platforms offer a wide range of product-centered tools like the OptionTrader and Probability Lab for simplified single and complex multi-leg option trading; FXTrader for forex trading; Mutual Fund/ETF Replicator to help you easily find lower cost ETF alternatives to popular mutual funds; our fixed income screeners for corporate, municipal and agency bonds and CDs – and more.
They give clients the tools they need to trade whatever financial products they choose to help them meet their trading and investing goals.
Payment Methods
Payment Methods
There are two types of deposit methods: deposit notifications, and deposits that actually transfer money.
Explicit instructions on where and how to send the funds will be provided after you complete the deposit notification. The instructions will vary according to your location and type of funds.
Checks or wires sent to IBKR without completed deposit notifications will be held until we can contact you to complete one.
A deposit notification does not move your funds. You must contact your bank or broker to complete the transfer.
Cancellation of the deposit notification will not stop Interactive Brokers from presenting the check for payment.
A withdrawal request will be processed only if the customer has sufficient available funds and equity in excess of the initial margin requirement. Available funds are defined as the lower of trade or settlement date funds.
If a withdrawal request is rejected, you may re-enter the withdrawal request once there are sufficient available funds and equity in excess of the initial margin requirement.
In accordance with anti-money laundering regulations, all withdrawals will be sent in the name of the account holder.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Interactive Brokers is a great choice for professional and active traders. The broker’s competitive commission’s structure and a wide range of available markets, alongside the extensive configuration options and order types found within the TWS suite of platforms, is a winning combination.
It is one of the most reputable brokers around the world. It offers good trading conditions with good trading platforms. You can see the pros and cons of this broker in the table below.
