Interactive Brokers

Best broker for various reasons...

I'm going to give IB thumbs up. Fast execution, huge range of markets, little slippage and easy to set up. Withdrawals & deposits are done with ease.
The best benefit in my opinion is the universal account. Let's say you day trade US futures and you have a $100k account. You probably don't use all of that $100k + associated margin when trading. This allows you to park all or part of the $100k in stocks/ETFs yet still day trade the margin on the $100k in the daytime. Effectively you can get a return on your money twice. This is something you can't get as a futures trader with a futures-only broker or a broker that segregates accounts by market (e.g. Tradestation).

In terms of platform - TWS is not the simplest by far BUT you can plug it into other platforms such as Ninja, which I do for day to day use. If you primarily trade one type of market (e.g. futures) but make the occasional trade in another type of market, then TWS is perfect for the occasional trade outside of your main market. This means you can focus your platform fees on the area in which you specialize.

Where IBs platform does excel over most is in the account reports. Some of the small futures brokers have dire account reports. IBs reports are comprehensive.

Data is effectively free; including depth but you can't get a proper Time & Sales from IB as it is sampled. Tape readers will need to look elsewhere for their data. TWS also has some scanners which you can use to look for opportunities during market hours but they are pretty basic and I haven't had much use for them.

I haven't had cause to use IBs telephone support but I have found their on-line support very helpful and always available.

The fees of IB are on par with most other brokers for the services I use. Certainly it's considerably cheaper than Tradestation. It is a little more expensive than a deep discount futures broker.

For Shorting stocks, IB has a good inventory of stocks to short. With Tradestation, I was forever getting "unavailable" messages when attempting to short which is a real pain if you have been focused on a stock with intent to open a short position. I have not yet seen this with IB.

My only real complaint with IB is that trading across other currency markets is somewhat 'fiddly'. If you have a US dollar denominated account and you earn profits in Euros, the process of converting the Euro's back to dollars is cumbersome.

Fast Executions, Great Prices

IB has super fast executes, extended trading, great trading platforms for BlackBerry, Web, and Desktop.

Excellent!

I have been with IB for a few years now and have found them to be near perfect in most areas of their business. Their real time data is fast and accurate, their UIs - TWS and Book Trader - are robust and easy to use, and their people have always be willing and able to answer my questions and help me resolve problems here and there. Not to mention their super low commission rates and the high interest they pay for cash, that I love. Lately I've also had the chance to appreciate their willingness to listen to new ideas and meet the evolving needs of their customers through new features. Truly the leader of the pack, imo, bravo!

IB

Excellent platform, highly customisable, fast executions (1 second), slippage negligable, in fact I often get a better price than the one on the screen. Feeds can be linked to Sierra or Quote-tracker charts.

I've only used the US customer service number once and got a recorded message "you are in a queue at least 10 minutes long". I decided not to bother! In fairness there was an "press * button now for an automatic $30 deduction from your account if you wish to close a position" option which might have been quicker. I used the Swiss number (unavailable during the evening) once when setting up the account and that was OK.
Website help very good.

Setting up the account was a very long process including passing 2 on-line exams! Allow maybe 4+ hours for a 'universal account' with permissions for futures and everything. But maybe all US brokers would take as long, no experience.

Comms of £1.70 a side or less for future trades are highly competitive.

IB

I have been using IB for about 4 months now and I think they are very very good value for money.

Opening an account can seem a bit long winded initally but once you have overcome that the actual dealing service is very good.

The telephone customer support is based in Switzerland and I think they have a much more formal approach to people than we have and it can seem unfriendly but I have found them perfectly helpful.

The TWS platform can be run from the web or as a stand alone (downloadable) interface and it is very easy to use.

Execution is very fast and there is very little slippage (at least on the STOXX).