Currency Secrets

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Interactive Brokers is another popular forex broker outfit that has gained notoreity throughout the last couple of years. As IB already had a large trader base through its other trading divisions promoting their forex division wasn’t going to be too difficult to get off the ground.

As IB has been known around the world as a deep discount broker offering very competitive commissions to futures, options and stock traders, they have successfully moved their operations to incorporate forex trading.

Some of the highlights about Interactive Brokers Forex division are:

• Can trade the spot forex market PLUS the currency futures market from the same account (in fact, you can trade anything IB offers from the same account – i.e. stocks, options… etc)
• Advanced orders such as Stop Limit, Trailing Stop, Stop, Good Till Cancelled, Good After Time, Good Till Date/Time are allowed
• IB offer a free API to traders who open an account
• Spreads are relatively tight, I’ve noticed spreads of 1 pip between EUR/USD and USD/JPY crosses

Some of the things to be wary of are:

• US$25,000 minimum trade sizes (various for other currencies see here for detail)
• Interactive Brokers has two forex platforms: one for trading (IDEALPRO) and the other for exchanging currency between trading accounts/positions (and trying to understand how to balance a foreign currency position can be rather frustrating if you don’t know anything about foreign exchange) – this second platform is known as IDEAL
• The IB IDEALPRO forex platform has a kludgy feel about it, but this could just be me
• Commissions of 0.2 basis points on trade size value or US$2.50 (whichever is higher)

Interactive Brokers provides the ultimate platform from trading just about anything around the world, by adding a forex arm to their arsenal they sure have provided everything a trader could ever want.

Unfortunately though, there’s a big downside to IB, that isn’t apparent until you’ve opened an account and encountered a problem, and that is: their support sucks. I mean, really sucks. If you do open an account with IB ensure you’ve tested all facets of your trading (including depositing and withdrawing moneys and buying and selling the instruments you’re interested in trading in) before adding large amounts of money with them.

Opening an account at IB is relatively straight forward, and can be done in less than an hour or two.

It is difficult to pass IB up when they offer everything a trader would ever need from one central account, but as with all things cheap be careful of the old axiom – You get what you pay for.

If you’ve used Interactive Brokers FX then I’d like to know how your experience has been with them, please add your comments.

Since changing the way people can access the Top Currency Secrets section to a new registration process I was recently captivated by one member’s profile.

Steven, a Currency Secrets member, writes in his profile:

People tell me my profile is that of a Greek god. To my unbearable good looks, I add the genius of an Einstein, the sexual attraction of an Errol Flynn and the wealth of a Saudi sheik. And above all my other virtues, modesty and humility crown the whole thing with a patina of magnificence that stuns even me. Other than that, I’m just your ordinary joe.

…and here I was thinking that forex traders were a dull, colourless and boring bunch!

Thanks Steven for the laughs, and I’m glad you were able to successfully register.

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