Interactive Brokers Reviews - What Is It?

DO NOT USE Interactive Brokers!!! You Must Read This Review!
Fully Researched: Price, User Feedback and More!

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is a company that has its specific margin rates, industry-leading commissions schedule, and excellent support for international trading. It was founded about 40 years ago and since then has presented one universal portal through which customers can trade on more than one hundred market centers in twenty-four countries, and deal in options, stocks, ETFs, bonds, forex, futures, and CFDs. They have something to offer to any seasoned trader with $10,000 ($100,000 for margin accounts). As Interactive Brokers requires at least $10,000 of funding, it is not suitable for casual investors. At the same time, it provides low-cost commissions and the industry in international trading.

Interactive Brokers is a good choice for professional and active traders, because it offers international trade capabilities, volume-based commissions and a high-rate trading platform. This is not the best option for infrequent traders or beginners, as it requires a high minimum investment, provides little education in the field of investing, and charges inactivity fees. If you are one of such investors, you may want to find brokers for beginner investors. The commissions at Interactive Brokers are fixed-rate and start at $1. Clients under 25 will be offered special terms. The company is best for day traders, advanced traders, and penny stock traders.

Customer Reviews - Does Interactive Brokers Really Work?

There are many users' reviews about Interactive Brokers online. Most of them appear to be positive. What customers like about the company is its low commissions: it is just $0.005 cent per share. It's hard to refuse from such a benefit which favors high-volume traders. The minimum trade commission is $1 and maximum is 0.5%, and exchange and regulatory fees are already included. There are other benefits for investors who trade more than 300,000 shares a month - they can pay less than $0.002 cent per share based on trade volume. However, you will need to pay exchange and regulatory fees additionally on this plan. There is minimal options trading rate, too. You will have to pay just 70 cents per contract and no base. There are discounts for larger volumes. Interactive Brokers offers one of the best trading platforms for advanced traders. The fast desktop platform includes such great features as watchlists, alerts, real-time monitoring, and a customizable account dashboard. An options strategy lab allows creating and submitting simple and complex options orders. It will also let you compare up to five options strategies simultaneously.

There are some other tools for investors including advanced charting, a volatility lab, heat maps of sector, paper trading and a mutual fund replicator, and stock symbol performance. All this will helps clients to identify ETFs that replicate the performance of a chosen mutual fund for lower fees. InteractiveBroker FYIs is a new feature that provides customized news about events in connection to the trader's investments. Research and market data can be ordered for a premium subscription fee. The broker also offers IB WebTrader and a powerful mobile trading app. The first one is a streamlined browser trading platform that can be easily navigated. Traders using margin will be pleased with the rates offered by the company. They are extremely low. The maximum rate is the benchmark rate plus 1.5%. You will be charged a blended rate depending on account balance. The official website offers a calculator to help investors quickly do calculations on their account balance. Another service offered by Interactive Brokers is Investment selection of products, from standard options, stocks, ETFs, bonds and mutual funds to forex trading, precious metals, and futures. The broker started requiring assets of more than $10 million for leveraged forex positions last year. Let us take a look at the testimonials left by real users of those services.

"I like working with InteractiveBrokers as this broker has the lowest spreads and commission, as well as the best execution. They are good at what they are doing. I only trade futures and their commission helps me to make good scalp trades. I am quite satisfied with their customer service and platform. They cooperate with numerous markets and offers good technology. At first this platform may not be that easy to learn but then it will become your trading strategy. This is a very good broker worth working with."

"I love Interactive Brokers because of their cheap commissions and low spreads. I am using them for stocks and FX. They mainly focus on professional traders and provide good executions. However, their swap rate is not the best. If you are just starting out or trade little you should look for something else. But trading execution and low commission counts are already worth considering this broker."

"Interactive brokers is my favorite broker for many reasons. First, they are US based and regulated, have a large asset base in both institutional and retail accounts publicly traded and. Their main business is global individual stocks. This is a good feature, because FX is not their major revenue stream. They have good charting, tools and possibility to customize. The TWS platform is robust and just perfect. But the main reason why IB is my favorite broker is due to the low cost of trading. I only have problems with stop orders. There is often a delay before the execution. This may be because of their STP model that presupposes sending the order away (2-5 seconds). The same sometimes happens with equities."

My Final Summary

Summing everything mentioned it is true to say that Interactive Brokers I a leader in investment offerings, access to international markets, lowest margin rates and trade commissions in the industry. The broker offers its services to professionals who already have some experience in the field. The company provides competitive commissions rates with tiered and fixed pricing which allows investors to earn more. International market access also allows opening more opportunities. Interactive Brokers can trade from multiple account types (single registered, IRA, Joint, etc.). In addition, the broker offers robust Trader Workstation (TWS) with a lot of tools, investment/trading options and diverse asset classes.

The broker is associated with a great number of positive reviews from real clients who highly appreciate free real time paper trading account for trading in a simulated environment. Another advantage offered by the Interactive Brokers is a robust online education center where you will be able to cooperate with tutorials for using the software. Retail traders are offered institutional high level research and all the necessary tools. There are excellent analytics options and a smartphone app that works well. Taking into account all pros and cons of Interactive Brokers I do recommend this broker.

Interactive Brokers Pricing and Rates

As it was already mentioned, the broker provides the lowest commissions. The margin rates vary from 1.91% to 1.41% for clients who hold $1 million and more with the brokerage. Equity trades rates start at $.005 per share ($1 minimum). The tiered-rate structure starts at $.0035 per share but routing is left to the customer, which can add or reduce the cost, as the client may add or remove liquidity. Options are $.70 per contract with no minimums.