In late , IB finally delivered on their promise to offer RRSPs and TFSAs to Canadians. FT is the founder and editor of Million Dollar Journey est. You can read more about him here. Hey great post, I was looking at Zecco free trading account for stocks. They offer 10 trades in any one day up to a total of 40 trades a month at no cost. How can they stay in business with free trades?

Can their ad revenues be sufficient? How much does Zecco charge for data feeds? Someone asked a question on my blog that involves Interactive so I pointed him to here and to your review of online brokerages. Keep up the good work. But in sharp contrast to this review my first impressions of their platforms are not good.

The various pages are completely unintegrated — E. Instead you have to go to another page and enter the stock code again. Also, it seems that only US share data is available for free. Share data on other markets you need to pay monthly or use one of the other free services Is that right?? Im just about to go ahead and open an Interactive broker account.. Ive done my research and what not.. Just wondering, anything that stands out in your minds that i should address of consider before I go forward?

The paperwork is quite extensive. Is there anything I need to know about the paperwork? Checking certain boxes, etc? And how secure is this process of signing up? All of our information is being sent over the web ex. Dont waste your time with the thieves at Interactive Brokers.

I have a story to share that agrees with these comments on losing equity. I posted it at my new website http: I might be wrong, so please feel free to leave your views and suggestions.

After reading several comments in this forum, I am convinced that I am not alone to think that IB has a lengthy application process. But I took the time to read through everything. Signed the papers, mailed it in, did multiple EFTs checks because of an computer error I had to do it 3 times! I did that too. All these haggling took around 4 weeks! Finally when the time comes to wire the 5k to my account, they DOUBLED the minimum deposit 10K! Just like that, no previous email, no letter,no warning, nothing!

I am a recent college grad and just starting to learn about all of this. So is there anything else I am missing? Or is this common practice for online discount brokerage firms? Or is it just IB that does this? And should I still go ahead and finish with the application and cross my fingers? So can I close my account right now? Given thant technically I havent even finshed the application yet?

You should confirm this with support though. Account opened, and trade permission approved. I am thinking of either to use IB or Zecco. I also want international market access; Hong Kong. Jacky, i would go with zecco, simply because they are free, and if i am not wrong, they dont require as much as IB for minimun, the problem is Zecco doesnt offer service in canada. And yes you WILL pay for IB, because they have access to you bank accout. Since you singned the agreement during your EFT, they can literally just stick a hand in your account, which is something that bothers me a lot as well.

But I think somewhere in the fine print of the contract that you have signed, you authorized IB to act on your behalf to access you bank account. I thought your issue with IB was the sudden increase in min to open the account? They did not specify min to maintain an account? You sure you can do that? If what you said is true, everybody would be doing it. I mean i can even just leave 1K in the accont. Let me know if you can actually do that.

I will open an account with them in a heartbeat! As per US regulations, in order to trade in a margin account you must have at least USD 2, or USD equivalent.

Because of contribution limits, IRA accounts will only be required to deposit USD 4, in order to open a new account. In addition, US Regulators require USD 25, or USD equivalent to Day Trade stocks and options. I never thought about it like this before, so FT, you mean i can literally EFT 10k in to open the account, and widraw 8k back out as soon as my account is approved?

They could also simply close your account. Thanks again for the quick reply FT. Yes, I understand that. I said 2K because I wanted be sure that I understood what you and Jacky meant.

What i would do is actually leave at least 4K in there just to be sure. But I said 2K to be sure. On a side note, Questrade only requires 1K, and all of their unregistered accounts are by default margin acc. Do you know what will happen if you get a margain call? With my previous experiences, they will ask u to top up within a certain period of time. I think you have it on the dot about that. Maintaining margin is a totally different thing. The ratio for each different investments u buy is different.

U get different margin for different stocks, derivatives, futures etc. Ok just an update. Yes you are correct Jacky, minimun 10k to open. And to keep it open only has to stay above 0. But to trade it has to be above 2k.

I i will do at least 2 trades a month. And that will already cost me close to 10 anyways at questrade. But I still gonna keep questrade for canadian securities.

So I might as well subsribe to US market data. So they are not charging me for inactiviy. I have just opened IB account. Whole process of opening account is electronic. Usually must be paper signed agreement. Actually I have not any guarantees of my ownership. How customers of online brokers are protected from frauds?

All signed documents are from the customer side, and mailed to them. I was searching the internet to see if I could do exactly what you were talking about. Put 10k in a Ib account then pull out down to 4k or because of loss of loss of interest on that 10k they require. I cannot even sell cash secured puts or naked puts. You have to have like a k in your brokerage account and make over 50k a year to sell naked puts at mb or tradeking, even if you have the cash to cover it grr.

I would like to double check with you guys. Are you guys allowed to sell puts at Ib? How do they know what your income is? They upped the commish for Can stocks. Ask how much comish to buy shares of XYZ at 30 cents — should be 0. IL has quotes and frankly, IB is very hard to use.

I am not a freaking accountant or internal auditor, so the poorly designed interface, although providing every single detail and metric a beancounter could ever imagine, simply has a whole bunch of useless data for me.

Now they have a mobile site access is very basic but fine, can be used on a phone screen, also supports secureid,. USD comish dirt cheap on stox, smart routing, great forex, great eft and wire capabilities, no paper at all, immediate execution,. Basically this is like giving you a DOS based word processor back in those days where everything was user configurable and the look and feel sucked.

The possibilities are endless for the bookkeeper or back officer in all of us! Remember the only copies are the ones you download onto your machine. Jazzy care to elaborate on the fees? So far for most of my trades the commission has been always 2 bucks or even just 1 dollar. I cant really complain about that, and as for penny stocks, as far as i know they are one of the cheapest on the market.

If you have a link to their fees page that would be great, never bothered looking for it. As for the maintanance, i was wondering if lets say i use only 6 bucks on commission fees, are they just gonna charge 10?

But IB does NO HAND HOLDING, meaning they are typically quite blunt and customer service will only answer exactly your question without going out of their way. But keep in mind they handle much larger accounts than yours.

I also like the fact I can get futures quotes on IB for no extra fee part of the package for US stocks.

So I can get real time quotes on oil, gold, forex. Another important point which you might miss at first is that IB charges an order cancellation fee. For example, you put in a good till cancelled order, but then you change your mind and want to cancel it.

I also never use good till canceled, I use good till date and specify a date explicitely so again the order will expire by itself. Also their software is kind of crappy, but it works and does the job. Bottom line is run through their fees page and write down a few scenarios of what your typical trades are.

For me it was a big saving compared to my other broker Disnat. Wow bruno, thanks lots for the tips, had no idea that IB charged 4 bucks for cancelled orders, god knows how many i have used, and i still didnt know. I guess i better go check. That would be incorrect. Modifing an order by changing the limit price WILL incur a cancelation fee. Not sure why you would say this. By the way, When moving to IB from other brokers, This unfamiliar for me cancellation charge was a bit intimidating, but it turns out to be a non issue.

The Commission savings you get with IB over other brokers simply overwhelms the cancellation charge. So IMHO I would not let cancellation charges be a deciding factor if deciding whether or not to transfer to IB.

I just reviewed my activity. I have had numerous cancels on gtc stocks orders, I see absolutely no cancel fees under Other Fees or anywhere else. But then it goes to prove your other point, which is that yes the fees are not meaningful when you look at the overall package. In my case I only get of these fees on an average of maybe 30 transactions per month. Does anyone trade options on IB? I have been using Questrade but they do not have options strategies any longer since losing Cybertrader.

You now must call it in and pay a broker fee for the transaction. IB is a really AMAZING Broker. Simply access to much international exchanges arround the world. Simply forget other US or Euro brokers which only focus mainly on domestic exchanges. Their stock trading fees are generally far less for me than what I would pay other discount brokers, UNLESS my trade if for thousands of shares.

Then the formula IB used raises the fee to a level above some other brokers. However, generally I pay only a dollar or two or three per trade. No one else comes close, to my knowledge.

Interactive Brokers Group Inc (obupexeh.web.fc2.com) Company Profile | obupexeh.web.fc2.com

I use Quicken to track my finances. IB used to let you download into my Quicken account up to 15 days of data with a few clicks. Why the change to the worse? IB rejected check deposits from my on a joint account I hold with my spouse. No explanation was forthcoming. Why IB is so tight on this is a mystery to me. I have been with IB for years and I think Bruno and Steve hit the nail on the head. I specially agree with them on the irrelevance of CXL fees. You also must look at the grand balance.

There are brokers who offer sexy gimmicks but how they are on balance? How are their fees? IB could and should improve their coverage of Bulletin Board stocks n the U. I go through waves of activity but generally do 10 — 20 trades a day and IB cannot be beaten for my style.

For those who use IB, does any one have experience of using IB as forex instead of the banks. For example, 1 initiate ACH from IB to deposit CAD. Hey moneysheep, yes you can do that providing that you have both a regular bank account and usd bank account connected to your IB account. That is actually one way to get extremely cheap forex conversion. IE if you did CAN to US, you have to wait 60 days before you can withdraw US.??

Anyone have any bad experiences with this? Could they go belly up? I would want to trade primarily in US stocks. Would I set up my acct in USD or CAD? If I set it up in CAD am I able to purchase US stocks? You can either have a CAN account or a US accound. Only one currency under 1 account. Not sure if you can have 2 accounts under 1 name. If you wanna purchase stocks demoninated in currency other than you account default, you will have to do it on marging, and thus paying a interest on whatever amount you are on margin at the end of the day.

To put it simple: From there, you can use the FOREX to convert your CAD to USD with which you can trade with. Alternatively, you can keep your CAD and trade USD with margin thus eliminating currency risk but now with interest exposure. This has happened at least 4 times since I opened the account.

Ingar, how about this one… http: Unfortunately the links do not explain how to convert foreign currencies back to your base currency. The process for doing this is to sell USD. I found that out after being kept on hold for 15 minutes waiting to speak to an IB Canada rep. Fast market, has come up several times even though my stop price would be reached at 1: I do appreciate your attempt to help me but since my previous comment I have experienced more suspicious trade activity, including opening positions on my account around rollover time just after midnight.

In fact, Carlo the IB rep said that there were certain inconsistencies with the trades and would call me back… of course there was no call back. I filed a complaint with the CFTC who responded by stating that IB Canada is not registered with the CFTC and suggested I seek arbitration through the NFA. Yesterday I began the process by filing a second complaint and intend on initiating arbitration against IB Canada.

On Sep , I also instructed IB Canada to close my account and transfer the remaining account equity back to my bank. When I tried to open an account, it actually refused me because of lack of experience. I have been trading on and off for the past 10 years!!! Most of you seem to be fresh blood though…. I am not opening an account with them at this point because I figure if they put such restrictions, it is because they want to tailor their offer to the needs of specific client types.

That means there will be less for me here simply because they aim at another sector of clients. For me, I have bought my own stocks for almost 30 years. It is not what I would have chosen except that their margin rates are the best that I could find. Tried IB for about a year and a half. My recommendation is to avoid them like the plague. Live market data feed TSX-V is unreliable. At times, I would go on for a good month before it would work again.

And they would not refund my money. There used to be unlimited levels for level 2 data. Then one day, they limited it to 5 on both the ask and bid sides. They claim that it was a gift from them to offer unlimited levels yet it is mentioned nowhere on there website. There were a few good helpdesk technicians that were very responsive.

However, anything complicated which gets escalated take forever to resolve. They violate their terms of service whenever they please. I made so much fuss about it that they escalated my case to their top legal guy.

Despite these cons, there were some positives: But these positives were greatly overshadowed by the many problems I have had with this broker. At this moment looking at trading platform and TWS looks like it has everything you can imagine, but because of that very, very complicated.

Is that right or just bad first impression? I was thinking of changing from TD to either Qtrade or IB.

URU METALS share price (URU) - London Stock Exchange

They said something like they had low volume and were volatile even though both had a beta of only around 1. TD is the worst broker now in my opinion for people that use a margin account.

For cash or RSP account TD is OK, but I would never invest on margin with them. You have to convert base currency amounts to pay for stocks in other currencies.

The explanation was BS. Can someone explain the logic here. You buy 1 stock for 5K, no margin used, cash used. Do you have a CAD account and bought a USD stock without converting to USD first? I do not trade on margin — cash only. With Questrade my LSE order, once filled, is converted to CAD at the exchange rate of the day and then settled, but others on this forum seem to imply that with Interactive Brokers they would actually treat a similar trade buying UK stocks as purchasing on margin and charge me interest?

There is no automatic currency conversion on IB. If you buy an LSE stock, but have no GBP, then you will end up with a negative GBP cash balance, on which you will be charged interest. The base currency on your account is for accounting purposes only. You can keep your cash in any currency you want. You can have a CAD account and keep all of your cash in GBP, or half in GBP and half in AUD, or any combination you like. Since interest is tiered, you will earn less interest if you spread your money than if you keep it all in one currency.

However, at current interest rates, this factor is less important than it once was. Excuse my language, but my current broker RBC Direct Investing is a total d-bag.

Besides insulting me by opening my account with my name misspelled, shorting leveraged ETFs costs a leg and an arm and quite possibly a head if I stay with them. As far as I understand, to short a security at RBC, your order is routed to the loan desk which verifies the current inventory and then fills or rejects your order. The lead time is usually minutes. Care to tell me why I hold a negative position in these ETFs as of now? Which brings me here — I am in the process of looking for a new broker.

Does IB need to do a custom check of the available inventory? I could do without the real time data I use Google finance and I already have my own spreadsheet setup to update my own portfolio value and log everything every 5 minutes. I never even figured out how to convert from CAD to USD.

My only concern is that I run into the same difficulties with a poorly designed trading platform. I have had very little experience with IB and shorting ETFs but it was very fast and no issues so far. I have account with Scotia iTrade AxisPro platform , no complaints so far, but I keep missing lots of opportunities because of overnight gaps. Has anyone had any experience trading those instruments with IB. For some strange reason there are no brokers in Canada that offer futures trading.

TradeFreedom dropped futures in and more and more US brokers without Canadian office get scared of our regulators and ask Canadian residents to close accounts, like Transact did last year. Worst company that I have ever dealt with! They have so many problems that I would have to spend hours enumerating them.

But just to list a few of their major flaws, 1. They don not integrate their statements and accounts so you have to log in twice. If their system is down, you can only get out of positions with a market order and you cannot put on a new position, no limit orders period! Everything that goes wrong is the traders fault. If you want any refund you have to arbitrate. Should i go on…. To see what you should know about IB and their current level or service, I recommend reading this review from a 9 year client http: Alternatively, I can exchange the U.

It seems that it would be much better to do the currency exchange? IB did rape me with those automatic margin call automatic sell or cover short sale orders. Funny thing is they always pick your losing position so you immediately recognize a lost. I lost about K with them because of this rule. I had gain in HAL but instead of selling HAL to cover a measly grand or two or another stock like AMD with unrealized gain.

They covered with shares of RIMM which is spiking during after hour. So next day as expected I covered my position with remaining share making a net loss of couple hundreds instead of having a gain of 3K. This happen several times usually costing me several thousands per month. Trading platform which is not as powerful but extremely user friendly.

Very bad experiences with IB. Their customer service is deplorable. I was away from my computer one day and got a margin call, instead of liquidating the smaller position that would have covered the call… they liquidated my larger position to the tune of a few thousand dollars.

When I called to complain and try to put the situation right, they said they have no control over their computers, that they randomly pick a position to liquidate. They were downright mean to me on the phone and said you have to make sure in your account window to check which positions arebto be liquidated first, or they will take whichever one they want at random. I just bet they always take the largest one that will give you the biggest loss.

I was furious and never, ever, got any satisfaction. They refused to credit my account with the larger position and take the smaller one instead. If we get enough votes they might implement this.

If your strategy involves long term leverage using a margin account, there is no better brokerage than IB in Canada. If someone has a better alternative, I would be interested in knowing it. I agree with Jack Snapper, they will auto liquidate you intraday, i lost a good deal of money to them trading credit spreads, an option strategy with fixed margin requirements and fixed loss. They are scammers and should be shut down. I could have recovered it with a competent and professional broker.

But Salvatore Recco Head of Institutional Services Asia was slow, not polite, unprofessional, giving lame excuses and possibly make big money on my back.

If any problems happens, especially a senior IB staff is incompetent, you could not complain. They will just hide and send you a small potato guy. The small potato told us different things so I discovered that Salvatore Recco was lying and the staff know of his wrong doing. They will tell you that they will get back to you within few days but instead give you lame excuses few month later.

By that times all records could be modified by IB. Because They do not have any compensation fund aside in Asia! I took a lawyer and complaint SFC and regulator without any answer!!!

Even though they have no transparancy, and auto-liquidate you on margin accounts, I still am considering IB very strongly. Is there any way to get around the day trading requirement? Or maybe I have to stick to 3 trades a week?

From any one who has interective broker account. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Team MDJ — The Beginners — Vote for your Favourite. Interactive Brokers Review by FT on June 25, The TWS software trading platform is extremely powerful, but a bit tricky to use.

Once you get accustomed to the GUI, you will wonder how you ever traded without it. They have demo software on their site so that you can give it a test run before you commit. They also have a web based trading platform which is not as powerful but extremely user friendly. The web based platform is convenient when away from your main computer.

Commissions can get expensive if trading penny stocks. Low Margin Rates Prime — 0. Where the big banks will charge up to a 1. Canadian Online Discount Stock Brokerage Comparison BMO InvestorLine Review Top Canadian Discount Brokerages with U. Dollar USD … Top Canadian Discount Brokerages with Commission Free ETFs Qtrade Investor Canada Discount Broker Review.

June 25, , 9: FrugalTrader June 25, , 9: Outroupistache June 26, , 8: Daniel June 28, , Melvin October 28, , Jake Snapper November 27, , 9: I believe they should be behind bars, and should be shut down for their scam artist operations.

Ryan December 6, , Aliquippa December 7, , Hi, I have a story to share that agrees with these comments on losing equity. Jacky January 3, , 6: Hi Cebalao, Same experience. Hey Jacky; So can I close my account right now? FrugalTrader January 3, , 2: Jacky January 4, , 5: I just signed up with Zecco, and paper works will be posted tomorrow.

Jacky January 5, , 8: Hi cebolao, IB do not have access to my bank account. EFT is initiatied by me from my bank online to transfer monies to their bank in Sydney. Jacky January 6, , Jacky January 7, , 6: After some considerations, I think I will go with IB. Jacky January 7, , 7: Jacky January 7, , 8: It did not state maintain. FrugalTrader January 7, , 8: I just asked them about this, hopefully I hear from them soon enough.

FrugalTrader January 7, , 9: Good to know thogh. I guess I am opening 2 accouts then. Jacky January 8, , Hi guys, Do you know what will happen if you get a margain call?

Also he also told me this about the minimum: Jacky January 8, , 2: Just post all question to IB people, and get them to answer it. And pls post it here too. Jacky January 8, , 7: Jacky January 8, , 8: Wish we will get rich soon!

FrugalTrader January 8, , 8: Jacky January 8, , 9: NewIB January 9, , 6: Does any of more savy investors here have any advice on this? IBUser January 12, , 4: Jacky January 13, , 6: Tim February 15, , Any help appreciated great discussion! Steve March 16, , 4: I am closing my IB account, or maybe I will just keep it for US stocks and currency trades.

Now they have a mobile site access is very basic but fine, can be used on a phone screen, also supports secureid, Pros: USD comish dirt cheap on stox, smart routing, great forex, great eft and wire capabilities, no paper at all, immediate execution, Cons: FrugalTrader April 5, , 9: Bruno D April 7, , Bryan April 7, , 9: IB is the best by far.

Steve April 9, , 5: Bruno D April 13, , 2: Jos May 4, , 9: DEEP MARKET ACCESS FOR LOW PRICES. JJVA May 4, , 9: A couple of complaints: IB takes FOREVER to credit deposits into your account, even ACH deposits take days.

JTT May 12, , MoneySheep May 25, , 6: FrugalTrader May 25, , 8: FrugalTrader July 15, , 3: FrugalTrader August 22, , 9: Ingar September 11, , 4: Ingar September 16, , 2: Stat October 4, , Stat, For me, I have bought my own stocks for almost 30 years. Fred November 25, , 4: Zack January 27, , Hi there, I am in Canada.

Thinking about moving accounts from TradeFreedom to IB or TDW. TF and TDW share same kind of platform, different names though. I am mistaken here? FrugalTrader April 1, , 1: JB April 13, , 1: Tom April 22, , 2: Yes, but only if you carry a negative GBP balance. Steve May 22, , Steve, I have had very little experience with IB and shorting ETFs but it was very fast and no issues so far. Kirk Enston June 17, , 3: Are there any better choices than IB, as it seems to be a mixed bag: Kirk Enston June 17, , 4: Does anyone have any experience with MF Global?

Lena October 10, , 7: Greg Coffey October 23, , 4: Josh December 5, , 4: Charlie January 21, , 4: Allen Mass April 29, , 1: Linda July 27, , Binary Options Guy July 29, , 4: Dave October 4, , 1: Jiminey February 14, , 3: Park July 7, , Matt Correia July 24, , 5: IB complaint HK August 12, , 2: I wonder how can a broker operates without transparency! Chris September 23, , Paul October 14, , 5: FrugalTrader October 14, , 6: Paul, I use another brokerage for my quotes and IB for trades to help save on fees.

Sam June 11, , 2: Hey Great Review sort of dotated … So do you have three brokers? One at Questrade, one at your bank and IB? Team MDJ — The Beginners — Vote for your Favourite Previous post: How to … Have a Tax Deductible Mortgage Choose the Best Bank Mutual Funds Buy and Sell Stocks Retire Really Early Save a Lot of Money Start a Blog on a Budget. A Simple Index Investing Guide for Americans 7 Smart Ways to Spend your Tax Refund Monday Money Links — Dividend Advisor Promo, Home Capital Group, Advice for New Graduates — May The Ten Roads to Riches Bumped from a Flight?