Interactive Brokers

[sumosanammain]

TWS seems pretty reliable.I had read somewhere that this will take lots of bytes and will be difficult to go through orders, order cancellations, edit,charting,trades, position...but today I ran it on my old laptop and it was very effortless. charts updating as per the terminal rates. On the same laptop there is one more terminal of different broker was running.....but TWS never gave any issues. Orders, cancellation, confirmation of completed orders was very fast.It never hanged, quotes updation was very good so was charts updation.

They maintain that their TWS is up for all the time....in last full year, their TWS went out of service only once and it was rectified within 5 min .I had asked them this at the time of opening the account ....they say that they have alternate systems in place. But I am running 2 more accounts with full margin simultanously. Because if something happens with our terminal they dont encourage telephone orders. In case of emergency if you place telephone order, they charge Rs 1500 per order ( actually it is a penalty ...it is supposed to be a fully computerised operation ).

So I am keeping 2 of existing brokers' terminals also on running on a second machine . So if something goes wrong with my machine on which TWS is loaded....I can still square up the position on other terminals....and later or next day put opposite trade to clear the positions. This gives me peace of mind while trading.

The log in takes few more seconds than NOW to load but once logged in then it works like a magic. I have not integrated on Amibroker/ esignal because I dont need any AFL.....happy with basic studies like MA,MACD,RSI,Bollinger Bands etc....but they have facility by which one can connect Ami to send orders....yet not thought of going for automated trading.

I plan to use their Chart Trader to daytrade on smaller timeframes. So that issues of margin shortfalls etc are will not be there.

Still in the process of trying out various things and finding out plus and minus points .

Hope the above observations help.

Smart_trade

The question is, why even entertain them. 15 lakhs net worth, 1500 for a telephone order... I doubt they re offering anything too great, and most probably in a few months many brokers will be providing frills like cover orders and trailing stops. Zerodha already started cover orders, with improvement in margins if we use cover orders.

Out of decency, I cannot use words that I feel should be used to describe their policies.

But my family is amused why I am mouthing expletives at them

 

[Smart_trade]

The question is, why even entertain them. 15 lakhs net worth, 1500 for a telephone order... I doubt they re offering anything too great, and most probably in a few months many brokers will be providing frills like cover orders and trailing stops. Zerodha already started cover orders, with improvement in margins if we use cover orders.

Out of decency, I cannot use words that I feel should be used to describe their policies.

But my family is amused why I am mouthing expletives at them

If in few months our local brokers start giving facilities like trading from chart....then we can always close this account....but this feature of Chart Trader is definately worth opening an account for few months. TWS and chart trader is definately superior to anything available to us as of now.

We are traders ....if we find someone else giving more attractive terms with better trading tools...we will switch as soon as possible......but till that is available we may as well use these facilities.

ST

 

[timepass]

I think that sharekhan's TT 2.4 has chart trader ... never tried it.

 

[soft_trader]

The question is, why even entertain them. 15 lakhs net worth, 1500 for a telephone order... I doubt they re offering anything too great, and most probably in a few months many brokers will be providing frills like cover orders and trailing stops. Zerodha already started cover orders, with improvement in margins if we use cover orders.

Out of decency, I cannot use words that I feel should be used to describe their policies.

But my family is amused why I am mouthing expletives at them

Exactly, I my post I was trying to describe this thing. Just only for chart trader feature it's definitely not worth opening account.

IB is for বড়লোক

 

[Smart_trade]

Another negative point is they dont want any dormant accounts. So after initial period of 3 months, even if one does not trade in a month, they expect that the account should generate atleast US $ 5 as min brokerage. So even if one does not trade, Rs 260-270 will be charged to the account as min brokerage.

Plus point is on intraday trades in futures, they charge 1 paisa brokerage on one leg only....so effectively it is half paisa brokerage. Their transaction charges are just Rs 200 per crore of transactions.....

There are plus points, there are minus points ...each one has to take a call considering both plus and minus points and the use of these facilities in our trading...

Just putting positive and negative points as someone asked the views.....

ST

 

[Smart_trade]

Half paisa brokerage seems to be coming as a standard brokerage. I am pleasantly surprised when I got a mail from another broker with whom I trade that from 1-10-2012 he has reduced the brokerage from one paisa to half paisa.......better days are ahead for all of us.....

ST

 

[mprakash1972]

dear st,
who is that other broker?
regards,
m prakash

 

[DataRam]

In case of emergency if you place telephone order, they charge Rs 1500 per order ( actually it is a penalty ...it is supposed to be a fully computerised operation ).

So I am keeping 2 of existing brokers' terminals also on running on a second machine . So if something goes wrong with my machine on which TWS is loaded....I can still square up the position on other terminals....and later or next day put opposite trade to clear the positions. This gives me peace of mind while trading.

Smart_trade

@ ST , can you please elaborate on this point of keeping 2 terminals running simultaneously for squaring up. I am assuming something but I want to understand this in a better way from you.

Thanks.

 

[Smart_trade]

@ ST , can you please elaborate on this point of keeping 2 terminals running simultaneously for squaring up. I am assuming something but I want to understand this in a better way from you.

Thanks.

Quite simple actually. This has come out of necessity. I have in past suffered some major losses when my position was kept open due to power failure, computer hanging,Internet disconnection , broker's phone lines being busy etc. As I daytrade and many times keep my positions open for covering till 3:25-3:30 ,as we get best rates in this period, it becomes all the more necessary to have a back up system in pace. I have a fully loaded computer with all programmes on it so if computer develops problems, the spare machine can be put in without wasting time to rectify the defective machine.

But imagine at 3:26 the computer hangs or internet connection goes off and suppose for example we have a 100 Bank Nifty short position open there is no time to log in the spare machine, .....I have another machine running with different broker's terminal and separate internet connection. So if the main terminal fails, we can buy 100 BNF on the second machine with different broker. So at EOD you will have 100 long in one account and 100 short in the main account. We have taken care of prices going against us, opening gap against us etc....so next day you put the opposite orders when both terminals working fine and market is stable. It involves double brokerage but it is much safer than keeping the position open.Both computers failing simultanously is very rare.....

This arrangement gives tremendous comfort level particularly near the market closing time. The trade off is double expences of internet etc and double margins....

Smart_trade

 

[timepass]

emergency hedging....

Quite simple actually. This has come out of necessity. I have in past suffered some major losses when my position was kept open due to power failure, computer hanging,Internet disconnection , broker's phone lines being busy etc. As I daytrade and many times keep my positions open for covering till 3:25-3:30 ,as we get best rates in this period, it becomes all the more necessary to have a back up system in pace. I have a fully loaded computer with all programmes on it so if computer develops problems, the spare machine can be put in without wasting time to rectify the defective machine.

But imagine at 3:26 the computer hangs or internet connection goes off and suppose for example we have a 100 Bank Nifty short position open there is no time to log in the spare machine, .....I have another machine running with different broker's terminal and separate internet connection. So if the main terminal fails, we can buy 100 BNF on the second machine with different broker. So at EOD you will have 100 long in one account and 100 short in the main account. We have taken care of prices going against us, opening gap against us etc....so next day you put the opposite orders when both terminals working fine and market is stable. It involves double brokerage but it is much safer than keeping the position open.Both computers failing simultanously is very rare.....

This arrangement gives tremendous comfort level particularly near the market closing time. The trade off is double expences of internet etc and double margins....

Smart_trade