Best Thread Interactive Brokers

Hi there,
I spoke to a sales guy today and wanted to ask him some details about opening a friends and family account. I have to say I wasnt that impressed by the service. It seemed like he could nt wait to get me off the phone. I wanted to ask specific questions that I wasnt sure about from the website...

so I asked him my about my queries and rather than answer them he just said he would send me info my email. However I ve got a feeling this wont be any different from the info on the site.

There was no is there anything else I can help you with or anything. As I say just like he wanted to get me off the phone. It was about 3min phone conversation.

I gave him my email twice, but he did nt send anything...now that means another call to ask and explain...BTW his name was Perez.

Maybe I could get some info on here...from you guys who seem to be helpful and know alot.

I want to know about position sixe and contract sizes, maybe with benefit of an example.
I trade on longer time frames. Daily chart.
This means that my stop can be quite wide, meaning I need to use lower leverage so I dont compromise my total risk.

heres my situation...

risk 2-3% per trade.
Sometimes stoploss can be wide meaning can risk less per point movement.
So what I m worried about using IB is that minimum contract size might be too big for my starting capital if i olny want to risk 2% of bank.

So can anyone tell me what instruments would suit smaller leverage.

example, if I buy Footsie at 6500 and it goes to 6550 that is 50 points, what is the least value per point I can access using IB.

And a forex example would be £/$. What is the value minimum value per pip movement.
Thanks in advance.

I guess if IB isnt suitable yet then I may use GFT as I can get the lower leverage but I would really like the idea of DMA.

Thanks in advance.
 
Briefly dragged from IB's website. I don't trade either so please do your own research.

FTSE futures per contract: £5 per tick. A tick is half a point so £10 per full point.
Commission (bundled) £3.40 per round turn (i.e open and close)

Need £2275 margin to open 1 contract and half that for intraday trades.

ISF iShares FTSE-100 1 share worth £629.75 (i.e FTSE at 6297)
Buy as few as you like. For stock you get buying power of 4 x the cash in your account, at least for US ones. I imagine this applies to UK too. Leverage on stock is far smaller than futures of course.

Commission: Up to £50,000 trade value is £6 (expensive compared to US products)
Above £50,000 trade value is £6 + 0.05% of incremental trade value>£50,000

---

Cable futures $6.25 per pip per contract
Commission $5.70 per round trip

or use IB's IDEALPRO spot forex broking

Minimum lot size is $25,000 or equivalent which I think works out at around 62.5p per pip.
Commission 0.00002 * trade value, minimum $2.50
 
Thanks alot for your reply. It looks like forex might the easiest way to start, as it has the lowest leverage. thanks again.
 
Hi,
I remember reading somewhere that IB uses a stand alone product for forex, is this still the case?
You able to trade 24hr while the FX market is open?
Kind regards
 
Forex Trading and Currency Conversion

Hi,

I am trying out IB's demo. I can not find any of the minor or exotic pairs on their FXTrader. How can I find them please, or do they only offer majors?

Also, anyone knows when one opens an account with IB and, say, I want to transfer in GBP, and then transfer it to USD after it gets to my IB account, will they give me the prevailing spot rate? Other brokers (or sending banks) rip off by taking a couple of hundred pips which is ridiculous IMO! I hope that's not the case with IB!

I noticed that IB charges 0.0001 of the amount transfered using IDEAL but I just want to make 100% sure that the money transfered will not lose any value!
 
Hi

I am wondering if it is possible to extract data from TWS feed to excel so I can do some backtesting or if IB would provide me with excel data.

I currently have an IB acc.

Stephen McCreedy
 
W-8BEN Internal Revenue Service Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner

Hi,

I am looking to move from spread betting on UK / US indices to trading US equities / indices therefore to-date have had limited need to understand tax related issues stemming from any profits.

I am currently in the process of completing the IB application form for an Individual Cash account and have been stumped by the W-8BEN form "Internal Revenue Service Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding".

If anyone can provide any advice on the responses required for the following questions it would be much appreciated. My gut feel is that I would only need to select the check box for 9a. however it isn't really the kind of thing you want to second guess.

Also, will filling in the form mean that I will then be exempt from paying US tax at 30% on any interest / dividends? I am also assuming capital gains are taxed in the UK.

Best regards,
Richard

Part II Claim of Tax Treaty Benefits (if applicable)

9. I certify that (check all that apply):

a. The beneficial owner is a resident of United Kingdom within the meaning of the income tax treaty between the United States and that country.
b. If required, the U.S. taxpayer identification number is stated on line 6 (see instructions).
c. The beneficial owner is not an individual, derives the item (or items) of income for which the treaty benefits are claimed, and, if applicable, meets the requirements of the treaty provision dealing with limitation on benefits (see instructions).
d. The beneficial owner is not an individual, is claiming treaty benefits for dividends received from a foreign corporation or interest from a U.S. trade or business of a foreign corporation, and meets qualified resident status (see instructions).
e. The beneficial owner is related to the person obligated to pay the income within the meaning of section 267(b) or 707(b), and will file Form 8833 if the amount subject to withholding received during a calendar year exceeds, in the aggregate, $500,000.

10. Special rates and conditions (if applicable—see instructions): The beneficial owner is claiming the provisions of Article of the treaty identified on line 9a above to claim a % rate of withholding on (specify type of income).

Part III Notional Principal Contracts

11. I have provided or will provide a statement that identifies those notional principal contracts from which the income is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business in the United States. I agree to update this statement as required.
 
rmwesley

I work at a US equity brokerage in London and we ask all of our clients to fill in the W8-Ben. Under "part 1" fill in name, address and tick the box which says "individual" - assuming you are the sole benficiary of the account. Under "part 2" you are correct - tick box "9a" and complete the blank with your country of residence (UK). Then sign and date at the bottom.

This will exempt you from US capital gains tax (though you are still liable to UK CGT when bringing the money back to Sterling in the UK). Dividends will be paid to you net of witholding tax at a reduced rate (from memory c10%).

Regards

Matt
 
smccreedy said:
Hi

I am wondering if it is possible to extract data from TWS feed to excel so I can do some backtesting or if IB would provide me with excel data.

I currently have an IB acc.

Stephen McCreedy
Click to expand...
Stephen

It is possible - try this link for the download and details

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/control/apicontrol.php?ib_entity=uk

There are also several manuals on their site covering this. Click on the "software" tab, then FIX/API and you will find the API guides there.

There is very little setup required - just a case of entering your user name and password in the appropriate place.

Charlton
 
Hi IB,

I am from the Netherlands and I have a few answers before I will open an account.

1) What is the amount that I need to deposit to open the account. When opened I will first use the papertrade function to get used to it. And I will open an EURO account.

2) I am going to trade the YM futures, and I will place probably around 500 trades a month. Only intraday, never taking positions overnight. If I have got it right its better for me to choose the unbundled commission rate?

thnx in advance,
Youp
 
Dear Youp

1. We ask a minimum initial deposit of => USD 5,000 or the equivalent of any of the other currencies we support.

2. Per your emai and profile solely it does seam you will receive a savings by choosing our unbundled v bundled future fee schedule.
 
Right then. I noticed feature request #2306 deals with Webtrader2's H/L. I suppose someone @ IB can mark it as fulfilled.

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
I don't understand why IB give us the ability to execute orders and check positions, etc. via the API, but not call a simple function to start and log into TWS via the API.

IB needs a simple VB6 API function like TWS_LOGIN.

If I write a simple program using the TWS API, I should be able to simply call a function to log into TWS, without have to fire off TWS separately and manually log in.

Enlightened
 
Hello IB,

1) Initial deposit is $5,000 or equivalent. How should I see this? Equivalent = €5,000 or equivalent = $5,000 * spotrate (for instance 0.75) = €3,750?

2) If I will trade in DOW futures only, should I open an Euro or Dollar account. I will withdrawal money once a month. What's better for me? When I choose for an Euro account, can I change this afterwards?

Thanks for your time and answers,
Youp
 
Hi IB,

If I've got a charting package which reads ES intraday data (does TWS do charting?) - how far back does the historical data go, could I review a 5 minute ES chart from a year ago, or does it only go a few days back?

Thanks
 
Hi IB,


Is it possilbe in the Book Trader to make the histogram column dynamic? ie update in live time while it is open. It only appears to update when it has been closed and re opened.


Thanks
 
Hi IB

I have not been able to access my account or trading platform today! I reported this at 9am and again around 6.30 pm.

The net result is I have been unable to trade and cannot access my funds. I am told the technicians are working on it and other people (not many) are effected here in the UK and Europe.

Can you throw any light on this?

Thanks
 
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