Interactive brokers 2019 need suggestions and reviews.

#11
@Newbie Day-Trader Please tell us about the account opening process in details, like what documents are required to be submitted, do we need to send scanned copies through email or originals by post, time taken to open an account etc and whatever else you think relevant in this regard. I heard they even demand net worth certification, liquid cash at hand certificate etc.

As is evident from the forum discussions, many traderji members are unhappy about frequent platform issues of home-grown discount brokerages who are never short of excuses.

Spare little valuable time of yours to guide the members to project IB as an inexpensive viable alternative.
Even i need to know this because they allow creation of online account and then you submit docs for verification....

I tried and login gets created but somehow after that i only keep getting errors to try and login again to complete the process...



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lemondew

Well-Known Member
#12
Ib has following issues.

1. They dont allow shorting in stocks.(some shortable stocks available rule most stocks arent available and its for name sake not for real traders). No intraday MIS concept. So Intraday stocks is out.
2. They are very good for index futures. Nice platform.
3. Pharma stock futures margin is 3 lacs-5 lacs per lot in some stocks. :) I think because Us pharma is volatile
4. Every quarter they send back all balance from your trading account to bank. 2 days to get money and then 1 day for you to send back so 3 days compulsory off in a quarter.


It's about a year now, that, I have requested @Traderji to seriously consider and bring IB onboard for direct discussions which is yet to happen. Long time back IndiTraders did, but, IB reps are no longer active there and sadly the forum has become obsolete, also those posts have become irrelevant as things have changed over the years.

I also contacted IB to join Traderji to which the Director replied, "Will look into that!" and, probably, he is still looking. Below are his details, may be anyone of you could try again, I will poke too:

Ankit Shah, Director of Sales (India)

Also requesting @Traderji (again) to look into it for everyone's benefit.....

Thank you
@CougarTrader

Thank you for your message.

We are in touch with Mr Ankit and trying to bring his team on board asap.

Traderji
 
#13
@Newbie Day-Trader Please tell us about the account opening process in details, like what documents are required to be submitted, do we need to send scanned copies through email or originals by post, time taken to open an account etc and whatever else you think relevant in this regard. I heard they even demand net worth certification, liquid cash at hand certificate etc.

As is evident from the forum discussions, many traderji members are unhappy about frequent platform issues of home-grown discount brokerages who are never short of excuses.

Spare little valuable time of yours to guide the members to project IB as an inexpensive viable alternative.
The account-opening is somewhat lengthy because they follow US regulations to a T, so yes, you have to courier the documents unless you personally visit their Mumbai office (which I did) & it can take a week or two for the account to be operational because it goes through their US head-office.

To start the process, you have to go to their website & click on Open Account > Individual > select your residency & markets, & then fill in your personal details. The KEY POINT TO NOTE here is that you have to select how much trading-experience you have & how many trades you have made so far & how knowledgeable you are in each segment Stocks, Options, Futures & Single Stock Futures because for instance, if you put less than 2 years as your experience in a given segment, then you might not be able to trade that segment. Of course, remember your security questions too because you'll need them to reset password (it can only be done by calling support) or otherwise verify your identity when you call them. You would probably also have to select your Trading-Objective as Trading Profits to be able to trade F&O, otherwise you might be restricted to only stock-trading.

Yes, you have to put in your Net Worth & Liquid Net Worth during filling out the form online but I don't think they ask for any proof of it, so it's up to you to decide what you want to put there.

True, & that was one of the reasons I finally decided to try IB one & a half year or so ago when they lowered their brokerage to match Zerodha's, & at the time, I'd been a long-time Zerodha-customer, & had even tried other brokers because of regular glitches at Zerodha but I don't think any of the Indian discount-brokers match the quality, stability & features of IB's platform. No more worrying about flapping telecom lines or whatever excuses other brokers provide.

Here's a snapshot of the instructions-page about the documents they'll want from you :

IB documents traderji.png
 
#14
As I've mentioned in another thread, I don't trade cash-stocks, only stock-futures but several months ago, when I was testing a strategy with small quantities in cash-stocks, shorting was available in most of the top 200 stocks but since markets are closed now, I'll have to check tomorrow & see if this is still the case or if they have changed their policy recently.

It's true that there's basically no MIS margin in cash-stocks, so IB mightn't be the best option for those looking to trade cash-stocks on intraday margin; perhaps, BTST, swing-traders & investors might be ok with it. Though if you're like me, who puts a lot of entry-orders but keeps only one open position at a time, then the lack of intraday margin may not an issue for you.

Yes, they seem to hate Pharma stocks, so I trade Pharma stock-futures with Fyers or Finvasia & trade all of the other stock-futures with IB.

It's true that since they process payouts during US hours, it takes 2 days for the payout to reach your bank, so quarterly settlement is very annoying with IB but I guess one could buy Liquidbees or some other instrument on the day of quarterly settlement to avoid them sending money back to your account. Recently, I also asked them, & they said that they are working on making available margin against Liquidbees, so once that's done, this issue would hopefully be mitigated.

Another negative point that I forgot to mention earlier is that their Call & Trade charges are a whopping Rs.2,000, so traders who love Call & Trade would likely not want to trade with IB. I was told by their staff that this is because they want to automate everything as much as possible & minimize human-intervention & mistakes, so they want avoid too many Call & Trade type of traders. Nonetheless, as I've previously mentioned, since their platform always works, you'll likely never have to use Call & Trade because of platform-glitches, like you do at Zerodha & other brokers; & certainly, during my one & a half year of trading with IB, I've NEVER used IB's Call & Trade because their platform always works.
 
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#15
@Newbie Day-Trader Thanks for enlightening us.

Did you imply that there is no account opening at IB for first time traders/ investors?

IB Amibroker and Multicharts plugins are enough for charting/ analysis requirements of average trader/ investor?

Do you like their option trading facilities?
 
#16
@Newbie Day-Trader Thanks for enlightening us.

Did you imply that there is no account opening at IB for first time traders/ investors?

IB Amibroker and Multicharts plugins are enough for charting/ analysis requirements of average trader/ investor?

Do you like their option trading facilities?
I think they only allow cash-stock trading if you write down in your online form that you have no trading-experience in anything. Nonetheless, no matter what you write there, it's not like they can cross-check it. It's a weird thing that they do, just like asking for net-worth, which even annoys US traders because most US brokers don't do that but I suppose IB's management is very risk-averse, so it's something that they do to protect themselves from law-suits by traders losing money & then suing them for it.

Personally, I've always used MT4, so I've continued using it, though when I connected IB & Amibroker it was good too, though as I've mentioned elsewhere, like most brokers' data, IB's data/charts aren't perfect whereas I've not used multi-charts so I can't say but yes, I think they should be good enough for most people but having said that, trading-analysis is a very personal & subjective thing, so it's up to each person to decide what setup works best for them.

IB's options trading-tools are way better than any Indian discount-broker.
 

lemondew

Well-Known Member
#17
when I was testing a strategy with small quantities in cash-stocks, shorting was available in most of the top 200 stocks but since markets are closed now, I'll have to check tomorrow & see if this is still the case or if they have changed their policy recently.

Now the above statement is giving a very wrong idea and may be suggesting you can use IB for top 200 for intraday stocks. Its not a problem.
1. First of all IB has a policy that you cant take short position on any stocks top 200 or top 10 after 2:30 pm. So yes you cant short after 2:30 pm
2. I traded nifty 50 stocks and many times stocks werent available. And there is no way you will know in advance if stocks are available or not. Lets say you are tracking tatasteel today and after 1 hour of chart watching you spot a trade you put the trade. Only after you put the trade you will know whether its available for shorting or no. So its not reliable.

Having said that for index futures /limited stock futures its good. Their platform is good. So it really depends what you wish to do.


As I've mentioned in another thread, I don't trade cash-stocks, only stock-futures but several months ago, when I was testing a strategy with small quantities in cash-stocks, shorting was available in most of the top 200 stocks but since markets are closed now, I'll have to check tomorrow & see if this is still the case or if they have changed their policy recently.

It's true that there's basically no MIS margin in cash-stocks, so IB mightn't be the best option for those looking to trade cash-stocks on intraday margin; perhaps, BTST, swing-traders & investors might be ok with it. Though if you're like me, who puts a lot of entry-orders but keeps only one open position at a time, then the lack of intraday margin may not an issue for you.

Yes, they seem to hate Pharma stocks, so I trade Pharma stock-futures with Fyers or Finvasia & trade all of the other stock-futures with IB.

It's true that since they process payouts during US hours, it takes 2 days for the payout to reach your bank, so quarterly settlement is very annoying with IB but I guess one could buy Liquidbees or some other instrument on the day of quarterly settlement to avoid them sending money back to your account. Recently, I also asked them, & they said that they are working on making available margin against Liquidbees, so once that's done, this issue would hopefully be mitigated.

Another negative point that I forgot to mention earlier is that their Call & Trade charges are a whopping Rs.2,000, so traders who love Call & Trade would likely not want to trade with IB. I was told by their staff that this is because they want to automate everything as much as possible & minimize human-intervention & mistakes, so they want avoid too many Call & Trade type of traders. Nonetheless, as I've previously mentioned, since their platform always works, you'll likely never have to use Call & Trade because of platform-glitches, like you do at Zerodha & other brokers; & certainly, during my one & a half year of trading with IB, I've NEVER used IB's Call & Trade because their platform always works.
 
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lemondew

Well-Known Member
#18
They have a order which will automatically fire after a particular time. So one can put an order to square off positions at 15:15:00 This can be attached to a SL order such that if Sl doesnt happen it will fire. So one can make their own auto square off.

As I've mentioned in another
Another negative point that I forgot to mention earlier is that their Call & Trade charges are a whopping Rs.2,000, so traders who love Call & Trade would likely not want to trade with IB. I was told by their staff that this is because they want to automate everything as much as possible & minimize human-intervention & mistakes, so they want avoid too many Call & Trade type of traders. Nonetheless, as I've previously mentioned, since their platform always works, you'll likely never have to use Call & Trade because of platform-glitches, like you do at Zerodha & other brokers; & certainly, during my one & a half year of trading with IB, I've NEVER used IB's Call & Trade because their platform always works.
 
#19
I think they only allow cash-stock trading if you write down in your online form that you have no trading-experience in anything. Nonetheless, no matter what you write there, it's not like they can cross-check it. It's a weird thing that they do, just like asking for net-worth, which even annoys US traders because most US brokers don't do that but I suppose IB's management is very risk-averse, so it's something that they do to protect themselves from law-suits by traders losing money & then suing them for it.

Personally, I've always used MT4, so I've continued using it, though when I connected IB & Amibroker it was good too, though as I've mentioned elsewhere, like most brokers' data, IB's data/charts aren't perfect whereas I've not used multi-charts so I can't say but yes, I think they should be good enough for most people but having said that, trading-analysis is a very personal & subjective thing, so it's up to each person to decide what setup works best for them.

IB's options trading-tools are way better than any Indian discount-broker.

Hello,

I heard that IB has facility to place orders for options based on underlying price.
Means, i can place an order which execute in option, with trigger price from spot.
Did you tried this order type? please let me know...
 

lemondew

Well-Known Member
#20
Its in alerts section. You can place a square off order in option or futures of some other stock based on underlying price. You can also put multiple orders on options based on alerts in underlying price....
Hello,

I heard that IB has facility to place orders for options based on underlying price.
Means, i can place an order which execute in option, with trigger price from spot.
Did you tried this order type? please let me know...
 

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