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Hello fellow traders - my first post in this community, hence please go gentle with me. I trade futures using Interactive Brokers (IB). Since I am registered as a trust account, IB has marked me as a Professional trader, meaning that they would charge me high for getting market data subscription. From my rough computation, it would cost me US$354 ($118x3) per month to get market data subscription for futures contracts like index, agro, energy and metals futures. It could be more as well. I tried to explain to IB that I am the only trader on the trust account but couldn’t get the charges lowered. To avoid the hefty charges, I have created another account with IB in individual capacity wherein I have got the market data subscription at very low cost - if not mistaken, it is free if I do trades more than a specified amount. And now when I need to trade futures on my trust account, I see the charts from my individual account. This is not good practice and I miss trades at times.
I am reaching out to seek guidance on what should I do to get live data on my trust account setup with IB. I can not use any other trading platform except for IB as the trust account happens to be my retirement account and these guys are the only one acceptable in Australia. Should I use Sierra Charts which provides much better charting than the IB and pay a nominal amount? Any suggestions please.
Since I am not from Australia, I can only comment on one point and it seems to me to be far more important than your question.
As I understand it, you have a "Retirement Account" with a broker. I don't know how much money is involved, but if this money is so-called retirement money from which you want to finance your retirement in old age, then this is an absolutely bad idea. Why?
In my active time in trading I have seen at least three brokerage companies that went bankrupt. That means: If you still had a trading account, you lost your entire capital in the worst case. In two cases I/we were lucky, because we had already changed the house because of better conditions, in the third case we had to accept a loss of more than 30% on the total capital. And this not because of mistakes from our side instead of sham full,deliberate misconduct by top managers in those broker house like in the other two cases.
This is simply a reminder that brokerage houses are not infallible. If I may misinterpreted this point, which I consider most important, then just forget about this posting, still not the reminder.
Thanks Symple for your thoughts and concern on the retirement account. I chose Interactive Brokers over others only because of the fact that they are a big broker and they shouldn't get impacted. But you are right - irrespective of the size, a brokerage firm can go down and cause a grief on similar lines you have mentioned. I need to consider the risks which it poses, thanks again.
I use Interactive Brokers and Sierra Chart together. I use SC's Denali feed and have order execution working through Interactive Brokers. It works well, though not without some occasional hiccups since IB is a little tough to work with. I do have IB data feeds for stocks and indexes since there are few options for those instruments on IB. But, if you're sticking with futures, you should be golden.
Approximately 2 years back, I opened an Interactive Brokers account in Australia for my Discretionary Trust. I too was deemed to be a 'professional trader'. Despite my explaining to IB that with my full-time employment as a CPA and my trading being very part-time, I felt that my trading was in no way 'professional'. The IB representative was very clear that if my new IB account was not in the name of an individual, for example, a Trust, private Company, public Company, or a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund, then the account would automatically be created as 'professional' and there was no system override to change the account status for the fees.
A nice feature of MultiCharts is that you can have separate broker and data feed accounts. So, I went down the same path as you ... a fully funded account for trading, with a separate account for the data feed. If you are seeking an alternative charting/trading platform and retaining IB as your broker account, then MultiCharts may be of assistance given your circumstances.
Thanks, I will give Sierra Charts a try. While looking at its website, it talks about different packages, so maybe I will need to see what makes sense for me to subscribe with. I am primarily looking for live data feed for index (ES, YM, NQ, RTY), Energy (HO, RB, NG, CL) and Metals (HG, GC, SI, PL) futures.
Thanks Hemmo for your thoughts - I am unsure as to which one to choose - Multicharts OR Sierra Charts? I searched through the forum and found a few posts on this comparison. Just to progress it ahead, I would start with Sierra Charts and if I face challenges or gaps, will try Multicharts. Do you have personal experience on the difference between the two and which one would you recommend?
My charting platform journey has been ...Metastock ...eSignal ...MultiCharts. So, no Sierra Charts experience for me to allow for an informed comparison to be provided to you.
I do have experience with both. Although, it's been a while since I used MultiCharts. This is probably a terrible metaphor, but, consider them to be as different in function as Unix vs Mac (or Windows, if you prefer) - Sierra Chart being more akin to Unix in this example. What you get with Sierra Chart is a rougher out of the box system that is extremely powerful with a ton of flexibility. SC is not impressive when you load it up. However, the amount of configuration and the ability to create some really unique and customized chart views is astounding. I'm still floored by what SC enables you to create. For power users, it's one of the best out there.
MultiCharts is a very solid platform. It's easy to use and has a lot of add-ins. I liked MultiCharts when I was using it. But, I needed certain custom views that SC allows me to create whereas I would have had to purchase 3rd party add-ons with MultiCharts. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. And, if you're doing pretty basic charting, MultiCharts may be more than enough for you.
Good luck. You have the enviable position of deciding between two great options. You likely won't go wrong with either one. If you choose SC, though, just be patient with it. It might take a little learning curve to really unleash it's potential.
