Gyroscopic Investing

In Barron's Best Online Brokers for 2014 article, they state that IB has removed min 10 USD charge for accounts with over 100K. This is making IB perfect for international PP investors who have over 100K. You get SIPC, you can buy US treasuries, and you can buy VUSD on LSE, and ZGLD on Swiss exchange.

http://webreprints.djreprints.com/3352061195159.html
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=4969

I have a IB account and find it to be a very good broker.  I have never purchases U S Treasuries and wonder about the cost and the spread of purchasing 30 year bonds. 

There is still a minimum $10 monthly market data charge, if you do less than $30 in trade commissions. This is for the normal non-pro market data, which does not include real time bond prices or options.

You can turn the market data off for the months you are not trading in the account. I believe the granularity is 1 month, so if you need to rebalance, you will pay the $10 for that month, plus the commissions. With IB, though, the commissions are very low.

Bond trades are at the market spread, plus a commission of $5 to $7 in my experience.

SteveGo wrote: There is still a minimum $10 monthly market data charge, if you do less than $30 in trade commissions. This is for the normal non-pro market data, which does not include real time bond prices or options.

You can turn the market data off for the months you are not trading in the account. I believe the granularity is 1 month, so if you need to rebalance, you will pay the $10 for that month, plus the commissions. With IB, though, the commissions are very low.

Bond trades are at the market spread, plus a commission of $5 to $7 in my experience.

Do you really need market data?  I don't think I pay for it and everything seems to work fine.

dragoncar wrote:

SteveGo wrote: There is still a minimum $10 monthly market data charge, if you do less than $30 in trade commissions. This is for the normal non-pro market data, which does not include real time bond prices or options.

You can turn the market data off for the months you are not trading in the account. I believe the granularity is 1 month, so if you need to rebalance, you will pay the $10 for that month, plus the commissions. With IB, though, the commissions are very low.

Bond trades are at the market spread, plus a commission of $5 to $7 in my experience.

Do you really need market data?  I don't think I pay for it and everything seems to work fine.

When I do limit orders I just open another account that provides free quotes.  Works fine.

Model JC, clever idea to get quotes elsewhere if you really don't like paying for market data, but for my VP, I love IB's extensive company data service...well worth the $7 monthly charge IMHO.  Heck I used to pay more than that for every single trade with Fidelity!

If you happen to have a Fidelity account, I would recommend using that for US Gov't Bond trades, as they are completely commission free, and Fidelity bond orders execute far more quickly and reliably than through IB (in my experience anyway).

Otherwise, I agree, IB is the way to go;  much more international, and $1 a trade most of the time! It  is not as intuitive as the Fidelity platform,  and it is far more sophisticated: I still don't know how to utilize half of the functions.  But Customer Service is pretty quick when you want  it.

If anyone transfers their account to IB, just know ahead of time that with IB, because of their accounting system, you cannot have a long and a short position for the same security.  They simply cancel each other out (disappear when transferred in);  not knowing this beforehand cost me a few grand with no recourse. 

The thing about IB is that I'm terrified I will accidentally add an extra zero zone where and blow up my account

You definitely need to be careful with IB, especially as you are learning to use the trading platform.  "But honest, I didn't mean to do that..."  doesn't get you very far with them.

MangoMan wrote:

dragoncar wrote: The thing about IB is that I'm terrified I will accidentally add an extra zero zone where and blow up my account

Could you please clarify that statement?

I have a margin account, so if you type in SPY - 10000 shares @ limit price (when you meant 100 shares), and hit go, it will fill your order without politely asking if you are sure you wanted to borrow all that money.

You can set up TWS to ask for a confirmation before transmitting the order. In fact, I believe that is the default setting, which you have to decide to turn off.

Back when I played with option spreads, I turned it off, since I was trading multiple times a day. If I made a mis-trade, I just reversed it immediately, costing me the commission and the spread each way. Not a disaster, but a bitter little lesson, and a reminder to focus.

These days, I keep the transmit confirmation turned on.

They also have a web based trading system, which is more like the other brokers' systems. Not as much fun to play with, though.