Interactive Brokers LLC

In 1977 Thomas Peterffy, the Chairman of the Interactive Brokers Group, buys a seat on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and becomes a member, trading as an individual market maker in equity options. Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (IBG, Inc.) is an automated global electronic market maker and broker specializing in routing orders and executing and processing trades in securities, futures, foreign exchange instruments, bonds and mutual funds on more than 80 electronic exchanges and trading venues worldwide. It operates in two segments: market making and electronic brokerage. As a market maker, IBG, Inc. provides continuous bid and offer quotations on over 600,000 securities and futures products listed on electronic exchanges worldwide. As a direct market access broker, the Company serves the customers of both traditional brokers and prime brokers. The Company provides its customers with an order management, trade execution and portfolio management platform.

Successful traders and investors understand that superior technology and low trading costs hold the keys to greater returns. IB's clients benefit from its worldwide direct market access to stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds, best price execution, and low commissions. Interactive Brokers Group and its affiliates hold $4.8 billion in equity capital.

IB's mission is to create technology to provide liquidity on better terms. Compete on price, speed, size, diversity of global products and advanced trading tools.

Interactive Brokers conducts its broker/dealer and proprietary trading businesses on over 80 market destinations worldwide. In its broker dealer agency business, IB provides direct access ("on line") trade execution and clearing services to institutional and professional traders for a wide variety of electronically traded products including stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds worldwide. In its proprietary trading business IB engages in market making for its own account in about 6,500 different electronically traded products. Interactive Brokers Group and its affiliates execute approximately 1,000,000 trades per day.

Interactive Brokers' headquarters are in Greenwich Connecticut, and it has about 800 employees in its offices in the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Hong Kong, UK, Australia, Hungary, Russia, India, China and Estonia. IB is regulated by the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, SFA and other regulatory agencies around the world.

- Cheap commissions but they nickel and dime you to death in hidden fees.
- Funds availability policy is larcenous, they squat on deposits at least an extra day just to steal overnight float.
- Customer service is worse than an airline ! They're only available via online chat and all they do is just blast URL's of their policies, BUT THE POLICIES CONTRADICT EACHOTHER AND WHEN THE ISSUE IS RAISED THEY JUST REPLY " We'll tell the programmers to update those conflicts" and refuse to abide by their own published guidelines / that is actionable by the US SEC.
- Lousy order execution and their cwappy "Trader Workstation" requires JAVA JRE and is tedious to setup and use, it SHUTS ITSELF DOWN EVERY DAY AND YOU HAVE NO CHOICE EXCEPT TO CONFIGURE THE TIME OF DAY IT SUICIDES BUT FOREX IS A 24 HOUR MARKETPLACE AND PROGRAM TRADES WON'T EXECUTE AFTER TWS EXECUTES ITS DAILY SUICIDE !
- They claim to be the "Professionals Gateway to Markets" but professionals laugh at IB and all IB does is rip off the uniniatated.

When I trade, I only need my order to filled instantly. I don't want a broker to hold my order and front-run me. IB execution is instant. Good work, IB. I don't know IB's range of services, so no comment on that. I don't do automation, I don't need any tech support. The only time I called IB was when the platform was down. Luckily, it didn't happen often. Commissions wise, there are brokers who offer lower commissions, but they seem to have unreliable execution. Between execution and commissions, I put much more weight on execution. So a lower commission rate won't have any impact on me. Thank you.

Executions are quick. They don't run your stops (at least I haven't seen evidence of it yet) like a lot of other brokers I've seen. For the most part they appear to be honest. I've heard people say they don't help you - that they're support is terrible - but every time I have an issue I go through the problem ticket, which is quicker than an email, and I get a prompt answer (usually less than 24 hours). The software platform takes some getting used to but how many forex brokers do you know where you can trade every other financial instrument conceivable from the same platform?!

Very stable execution and financially sound broker. Have used them 4 years and very happy. Trade mostly YM futures, but trade stocks and options occasionally. Good rates. Good platform. Good impressions.

I like Interactive Brokers because they have very tight spreads, low commissions, an API that is potentially usable by non-professional programmers, and they appear to concentrate on facilitating trades rather than taking their own positions (i.e. they are less likely to blow up). The ability to enter/amend orders from charts is very convenient, and they are regularly coming up with new features, particularly in the area of forex. They keep service to a minimum, but I guess that is the cost of the cheap execution.