Interactive Brokers - experiences and opinions

Hello

I use Multicharts and my broker is IB. I just don't like TWS to manage the process of my orders. Is there other solutions than TWS? I read somewhere that a other software could be use to interface charting software and a broker.

My main quest is I'm looking to minimize the info that i need to type to send or manage orders. Ideally, the info could be written in a text file using Multicharts and process using an interface software ( if it exist).

Question to those that as IB as their broker. How do you manage your orders. Do you use TWS. Any other software in used?

Any information appreciated

Martin
P.S. excuse my bad English. If I'm not clear, just ask I will clarify my thought.

I use IB TWS Booktrader to manage my orders. You can manipulate the number of rows visible in settings and all you need to do is click on price and transmit. Very simple operation.

Regards

Hello SignalWisard

Thanks for your suggestion. Still, I'm looking for an easier solution. I may got seven parameters per entry

Order1 : Quantity, Stop Entry Price, Stop Loss price ECO Profit Target
Order2: Quantity, Stop Entry Price, Stop Loss Price

All of these parameters are variable, meaning they all depend of the bar that give the signal. Nothing is fix. I can calculate all of those within Multicharts, but then i need a way to send the orders flawlessly.

Martin

The charting platform is ninjatrader.
I have attached a 10 min EUR.USD chart. It show on average a volume of over 12 Billion on most bars, which is a fairly accurate figure compared to the BIS FX volume stats on EUR/USD.

Similarly for GBP.USD a 10 min bar shows typically volume of more than 4Billion, which is also in line with BIS stats.USD.JPY show a 10min bar with volume of mostly over 6 Billion which is a fairly accurate statement.

It appears IB's liquidity providers are also releasing the actual volumes traded.

If you dont have IB data recording on, you will not these see the volume figures, but since i do i am seeing them.You would need to turn data recording on to see volume. This needs investigation as i've never heard of spot fx volume availability.

I have also been able to plot volume charts. the max volume bar ninja could handle was 1 billion. I loaded it and it looks like a 1min chart. which is exciting to say the least.
I am attaching pics.
In any case such large volume figures are not possible on IB's own platform. This merits investigation. I have also posted on the platform support forum and hopefully their support staff would offer some explanation of this

Regards.

doesnt sound like IB data. I stream IB data via sierra and max it reaches is around 1600 on a 5min chart.
interesting find to say the least, though

Most every liquidity provider will be releasing volume data for their spot fx transactions. They pass the data to your broker, who may or may not massage the data in some way; part of that manipulation is perhaps pooling it with other liquidity channels they use, adding in their own user platform trades, or outright manipulating the data to show you falseties.

Understand that any a liquidity provider will only be able to show their own user's volume, since spot forex is not centralized, ie., if citibank is your brokers liquidity provider, you will be only seeing citibank's forex volume, similarly for UBS, currenex, etc.

This has been available for some time. Every MT4 platform has it available, as part of the datafeed they received from their liquidity provider and push it to their users; there are many volume indicators for MT4, the most popular one probably being BetterVolume1.4.

But, the data that you are being pushed from IB is off, way off, and to be more accurate, incorrect in some form. It is impossible to have a 10 minute bar with 12 billion of any unit of measurement. Bear in mind that the decentralized nature of spot forex means that all volume echoed back to you is tick volume: each tick represents a buy or sell, that could be 0.01 lots, or something far more significant. You can look to my many charts under my profile to view the volume data that I post for both the MT4 platform (with Citibank as LP) and NinjaTrader (where I trade futures contracts, volume for which is centralized). In the world of spot forex, the 12 billion number is simply far too big and I would therefore propose wrong in some way.

As an aside, there is a signal feed from eSignal that pools together 200+ liquidity providers and pushes them to you in real time; their feed comprises large LPs like Currenex and many smaller ones. Collectively, it gives a very good view of which bars are experiencing volume and at what level. A decent MT4 broker who's liquidity provider you know and can trust as a source, and one that ideally is cross representative of institutional trading, hedge funds, and retailers can provide a similar level of volume data. As with other instruments the volume can be interpreted in various ways; you will see that I use Volume Spread Analaysis as part of my trading - you'll be able to find the VSA thread where I have spent much time posting. I will add here that there is a fallacy around the web that spot forex volume is useless and undependable - that is not true, and anyone telling you otherwise, is well, wrong, outdated, and, grossly misinformed - you have a bit of that on the internet.

As I mentioned, the volume has always been there, as pushed to you by your liquidity provider. Some brokers such as CMC actually purposefully DO NOT push volume data to their clients - these are brokers that should be avoided at all cost (in this case CMC is a market maker as well) because they are being disingenuous to their customers and not providing all the tools that can benefit them in their trading. Again, the billions you are seeing via NT/IB are wrong, and, from what I am reading, NT is not able to plot them for you via the VOL indicator.

You might want to check a IB specific thread or google elsewhere for what IB is pushing as part of the API for spot forex to your NT. I am not a IB user, so I can't really speculate much further, but I do hope the above helps somewhat.

THanks for your input. IB has all the top 10 banks as liquidity provider except deutsche. according to BIS the average minute in the european session transacts 1billion dollars worth of EUR USD. So this volume i'm seeing is not tick it's possibly the actual dollar volume transacted by the LPs. In one of the screenshots i posted a 1Billion Volume bar, which means the OHLC is based on the activity of 1Billlion(once 1Billion in volume is complete, the bar closes). It was similar in appearance to a 1 min chart. What MT4 makes available as volume is tick volume. This appears to be actual dollar volume since most of IB's Liquidity providers are the top tier banks. I have posted to ask ninjatrader tech to diagnose this and understand the nature of this new data i'm seeing.

Regards.

Billion dollars per minute would be 10,000 standard contracts? Thus if you scalp on the 1min bar would you be able to not move the market with around max 50 standard contracts. If 10,000 standard per minute , it would be 166 per second.

What about the futures volumes.

Futures volume on EUR for the entire day is 45Billion more or less. No comparison. During active hours in spot 15M barely registers. However even if you end up moving price 1 pip, price would tend to oscillate around the area, and thus have another opportunity to buy at the same price. By gently scaling in, i believe you can build quite a decent sized position.

I would just write to IB FX support and get their official stance. I doubt that their LPs are passing along volume data to IB, but it's possible.

Hi

I'm a newbie and looking to open account with IB, can anyone please advise re IB stop loss charges? do they charge for every stop loss change? so for example if I set a bracket order with limit target and stop, then will need to keep on moving stop manually to lock in profit, say move it 5 times, will IB charge me 5 times for cancellation fee? I don't like using auto trailing stop cause it will stop me out more often.

Thanks

No. Stoploss orders are not orders in the market but are held in IB's servers. You can cancel/create/move stoploss orders all day long with no fees.

Limit orders are different since they're in the market and there is a small cancellation fee for certain markets. Frankly I don't know if there's a cancellation fee for FX but IB will answer a direct question like this pretty quickly.

Cancellation fees are collected by certain exchanges.
As for FX there is no exchange, there is no cancellation or modifiation fee at all.
IDEALPRO is not an exchange, but an ECN.

On paper - but there are a lot of exemptions. If none does apply, but you are short of those 10K: With 5K you can get an account (with slightly higher fees) through one of there introducing brokers, IBs of IB so to say! But the account (and money) would be with Interactive Brokers.

Regards

Forex37

Doubtful it's an employee; unlike some houses, such as MBTrading, for example, IB doesn't appear to give a damn about what problems customers might think they're having.

Their attitude is essentially that everything you could possible need or want is available (somewhere) on their website; their account service and trading servers are as solid as rocks, their platform is adequate and very stable, their executions are nearly flawless, their API's are among the best in the business, and their fee structure is low. So their bottom line is: don't call.

And, in truth, if you really have an issue, their chat is very good. Have something else to do while you wait for them to respond to you, though.

And, just by way of anecdotal example, the other day I had an fair sized EUR/USD order sell 975 limit with the market 975 - 990, and it filled 984 to 986. Try that with most retail forex houses.

I agree. IB is an excellent broker for FX, one of the best IMO.
But one has to understand how their system works, and take time to learn their tools.
Also one has to have enough equity in order to trade at least standard lots in order to get the best commission.

Thanks everyone for your reply

Interactive brokers are trusty forex broker according to Fxstay site , you can trade with mini lots and their min open account in $5000

looking at their website max leverage is 40:1.. is this for US residents or everyone? I'll prob sign up with them to get cheap futures data for sierra charts / ninja trader but trade spot fx elsewhere.. 40:1 is to low for me.

just to clarify,
$5k as mentioned where? required minimum for any client?
isn't it $10k for the majority?
thanks!