IB allows one to trade futures, stocks and forex from a universal account - which is a big plus. I don't know that I will trade forex from it, as I thought I remember you have to convert currencies or do something weird through IB. I know their trading platform and charting software are not user friendly or the best, but this is not a daytrading account and will be used probably 70% trading ETF's and 30% futures off the weekly charts.
The spreads are the best you will get anywhere, given they have about a dozen big interbank feeds plus client-client fills, and execution is in the milliseconds.
also, as you said, their charting package is kind of rubbish. Well, it isnt *terrible*, it just has its own quirks which I could live without. Like the way it seems to randomly crash for me
It's not that bad, you could get by with it.I use Ninjatrader pretty much exclusively with them, and the combination has been pretty close to perfect for me (for the price). Plenty of people use Tradestation or Multicharts, and I have played around with Sierra Chart too.
(edit: I should add that for your purposes, their software will be fine. It's really only when you are talking about drilling down to the orderbook level that you could potentially run into issues. If you are trading off a chart, you will be fine. If not, Multi or Sierra will work fine)
Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any other questions, although being an Australian, to me an IRA is a pissed off irishman with a balaclava
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
..................unless is just some scalp,which is a good entry, hope you know where to exit,as I said befor you knows my thought about what I think is coming up.
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