Interactive Brokers for Spot Forex

September 20th, 2012, 02:52 PM

monpere

[...]
I never had these bad experiences with Interarcive Brokers. For me the only drawback to IB is that they don't do micro lots, although you can trade the EUR/USD in 1/4 lots. I also believe you can do fractional in other pairs but they will route them differently and you will get worst spreads.

Reminds me one thing I like about Interactive Brokers is their lot size--there is none, all that matters is $$$ amount, commission 0.00002 per unit, minimum commission $2.50. I believe the minimum trade size for Forex is $30,000 after leverage (which leverage is low compared to brokers that cater to smaller accounts, order of 30x IIRC for Canadians). The significance is we can write strategies that micromanage order quantity without worrying about standard 100K lot sizes.

Below 30K the order is switched from IB's Forex trading servers (IdealPro) to their "currency conversion" servers (Ideal), with a spread penalty.

September 20th, 2012, 06:00 PM

monpere

I just got an email this week from MB Trading apologizing for an outage during the week because their Telco broke a line or something.

Here is the email for reference

Quoting

Dear Valued Client,

On Friday, September 14, 2012, at approximately 3:27 pm EST, one of our primary telco providers inadvertently disconnected a critical circuit of ours while conducting maintenance on a non-MB Trading switch. This disconnect caused many users to temporarily lose access to their accounts. The line was restored at 4:22 pm EST, and all issues were resolved from that point forward. All historical data was immediately restored, and we are working with customers on any executions that they attempted during this window.

Critical failures such as this are often rooted in hardware failure. However, in this case, the root cause was human error on the part of a telco provider, and we are exploring restitution and moving business away from this company in the immediate future.

We apologize for any issues that this might have caused.

MB Trading

Mike

September 21st, 2012, 07:44 AM

monpere

I never had these bad experiences with Interarcive Brokers. For me the only drawback to IB is that they don't do micro lots, although you can trade the EUR/USD in 1/4 lots. I also believe you can do fractional in other pairs but they will route them differently and you will get worst spreads.

My feeling exactly. I don't think IB is a good venue for spot forex. I like to scale into and out of my positions. Their minimum $5 commission (roundtrip) really kills it for me. I was paying them a fortune in commission and had to work that much harder to make my money.

Like I said in my earlier post, I haven't found a better broker than LMAX for spot forex yet. The spreads are tiny, it's regulated by UK authorities, really fast executions, good customer service.

September 21st, 2012, 02:43 PM

Hi,
I have been account at IB for 6 years. I am trading forex at them as well.
Pro:
Stability. They have strong financial background and very large insurance four your account.
Tight spreads especially in non frequented pairs. I saw half pip in AUD.JPY but usually 1-2 pips only the spread.
You can trade from one account everything. It is important if trade other asset categories as well.
Cons:
$2.5 minimum commission and the smallest quantity is equal to $25000 so can't open 10000 eur.usd
Bad interest rates. For example in most forex brokers you get paid for an usd.jpy positions. At IB you have to pay for a lot (100000) around $100/month.
Hard to calculate the profit and loss. They do not convert back you profit to your base currency after you close the position, you have to convert it back periodically.

October 10th, 2012, 05:29 PM

looking for broker alternatives.

A distraction I was hoping to avoid.

July 10th, 2013, 10:58 PM

kardkovacsi

Hi,
I have been account at IB for 6 years. I am trading forex at them as well.
Pro:
Stability. They have strong financial background and very large insurance four your account.
Tight spreads especially in non frequented pairs. I saw half pip in AUD.JPY but usually 1-2 pips only the spread.
You can trade from one account everything. It is important if trade other asset categories as well.
Cons:
$2.5 minimum commission and the smallest quantity is equal to $25000 so can't open 10000 eur.usd
Bad interest rates. For example in most forex brokers you get paid for an usd.jpy positions. At IB you have to pay for a lot (100000) around $100/month.
Hard to calculate the profit and loss. They do not convert back you profit to your base currency after you close the position, you have to convert it back periodically.

I know what you are saying. I have loose quantities left over and seems we have to enter the odd quantity as an order to close it. Now the way IB is organized, I am confused exactly how many units that I need to close.

Interactive Brokers for Spot Forex

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Interactive Brokers for Spot Forex