A few people have asked me recently what broker I’m using and I was surprised that not many people have heard of Interactive Brokers. For that reason I thought I would do a very quick Interactive Brokers review.
As some of you will know, my switch to Interactive Brokers was really out of necessity. I had previously been with TD Ameritrade for about 2 years, and while the commissions were expensive I was still fairly happy with them. Then, one day I received a letter from TD saying that people domiciled in the Cayman Islands were deemed “high risk” and that they were closing my account with pretty much immediate effect.
So, I was pretty disappointed initially. But luckily it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as since switching to Interactive Brokers, I couldn’t be happier. When my account was first opened I was testing things out and traded 1 option contract. The commission was $0.75, I couldn’t believe it. Compare that to TD who would have charged around $12. Say the option contact was worth a total of $200 and that we had to open and close the position. That’s $1.50 versus $24. As a percentage of $200 that’s 0.75% compared to 12%. These reduced commission have opened up new trading strategies that were previously unavailable to me purely because of the commission costs. I just wished I had switched years ago!
The trading platform known as the Interactive Brokers TWS looks a bit different from your typical broker platform. It has A LOT more functionality though. I’ve created a very short video below that shows you what the system looks like and a couple of ways to place trades. The safest way to trade with Interactive Brokers is on the regular portfolio screen, but as you will also see, you can place trades directly on a chart using their chart software. Very cool indeed, and great for any budding day traders out there!
You may need to watch on full screen to be able to see it properly and apologies in advance for the poor quality video, it was my first time! Hopefully I can sort that out for the next one
Happy Trading!
I do not see a video link.
Fixed, thanks for letting me know. I recently redesigned the site and the video disappeared.