What do y'all think about Interactive Brokers?

Asked by capet (988

) April 13th, 2022

What do y’all think of Interactive Brokers (https://www.interactivebrokers.com/ )?

If you have a suggestion for an alternative, can you tell me what you like about it when it comes to international trading?

How do you think Interactive Brokers would fit for me, based on my situation?

- I’m in the US.
– I plan to trade at most one a year.
– I plan to buy risky stocks and hold for a long time (I’m willing and able to lose 100% of the money I invest).
– I want to maximize flexibility when it comes to the type of stock I can buy (different countries, different exchanges, different regulatory situations, whatever).
– Because I don’t plan to trade often, I don’t care very much about the trading interface, trading hours, and stuff like that.
– I don’t care about trading on margin or trading in derivatives; I don’t really even care that much about trading any assets other than stocks.
– I am fairly paranoid about the idea of my broker screwing me, or getting hacked, or facing some regulatory issues that mess me up, or something like that, so institutional reputation and stability are important to me.

So basically my priorities are #1 variety, #2 reputation, #3 low per-transaction cost for large transactions. (But maybe I should have other priorities that I haven’t thought of—let me know.)

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4 Answers

IB isn’t necessarilly your best choice. If it were me, I would check out TD Ameritrade/Schwab.

None of your “situation” items point to any specific broker as best. So a large discount broker with lots of offices is probably your best choice.

zenvelo (39546

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I’ve used Robinhood. Check them out. I was happy with them.

chyna (51600

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I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to investing in the stock market. I know nothing about puts, calls, shorts, and such. But my strategy of dollar cost averaging and staying the course over the last 35 years has worked very well for me. I have reached critical mass and then some.
I took advantage of work 403b and IRA’s and other investment in no-load stocks in strong companies and in the S&P 500. Vanguard is the cheapest way to invest. They’re expense ratio is something like 0.01 or 0.02%.
As Paul Kangus use to say, “I wish you the best of good buys!”.

gondwanalon (23205

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Thanks Zenvelo!

1. Can you elaborate on why IB is not necessarily my best choice? (Maybe because it isn’t large, like you recommend?)
2. What do you like about your two recommendations when it comes to international trading? (Maybe it’s their size and low cost, which I did mention as major considerations for me as well.)
3. Currently I disagree with one statement you made: ‘None of your “situation” items point to any specific broker as best.’ But I’m very willing to be persuaded otherwise. Can you defend that statement? (My objection was that, because I want maximum variety, Interactive Brokers seemed better than many competitors because of the range of markets and instruments in which I can trade.)

capet (988

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