Skepticlion
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Everything posted by Skepticlion
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Kim, What subscriptions do you use with IB for our trading? Tom
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I recently switched to IB and a couple of months ago they stopped sending me live data feeds. I was wondering what Market Data Subscription's IB traders typically use when doing trading on this board?
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Yikes. Another learning curve. LOL. For a retired guy, you wouldn't believe how much I have learned about computers, platforms etc in the last month. I hope that their iPhone app works OK because I will be out and about a fair bit.
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There you have it. I was looking it up. But Xfanman beat me to it. I finally decided that if Kim can do the trades there without difficulty, I could learn for the kind of money I put out for commissions. - Just last year, I would have saved enough to pay for a Macbook Pro plus a couple of monitors plus plus on a 17k account. TOS literally ate up all my profits when I did a back calculation. The difference was huge.
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Cuegis, Trust me, if I had known that, I would have. I was never told about the potential issues that I would run into. There are lots of things I would have done differently. But now that I am in the middle of it, I seem to be committed and any change I do now, will make matters worse I suspect. The people at IB did a very poor job of walking me through the process. No check lists or anything. An ATON transfer, heh not a problem. Now I say BS. Tom
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Good for you. I would have stayed with TOS if I could have gotten a good deal. The best I ever ground them down to was $7.00 ticket and $1.00 per contract. At the time they told me that they would't have moved any more than that. Being a Canadian, I couldn't use the Tasty Trade package so that didn't leave me much choice. Compare that with .75 per contract at IB and that is why I am going through the pain I am going through making the switch now. At this point I am very frustrated with both IB and TOS for giving me a run around about my ATON transfer. IB is saying it is an ATON transfer and TD is saying it isn't. I have missed out on the last 3 to 4 weeks of trading and from what I see, you guys have been doing well and I a missing out. So much for whining and feeling sorry for myself.
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My saga continues. I have been on the phone with TD and IB all morning to try and get things sorted out. As a result of the issues I have uncovered, I now realize that I should have converted all my positions to cash in my TOS account where I do option trading. If I had done that, I would have saved myself hours of grief. So for any of you contemplating the move, that would be my recommendation. Once the cash has moved over, you are good to go. Probably would take 4 - 5 days and not the 2 weeks to a month of aggravation and missed trades that I have experienced Tom
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Folks, I am in the process of changing from TOS to IB. Last year all my profits were eaten up by fees at TOS. I did a rough calculation that I will save more than 50% by going to IB. So I am in the process of changing. I am a Canadian so I have to do an ATON transfer. I believe Americans need to do something similar. The process of doing an ATON transfer has been quite the pain. I have been out of the trading game for over 2 weeks because of the issues I have experienced. Still a waiting game. If any other members do the switch to IB, they should be aware of the following; 1) Have enough cash in your positions. ATON transfers can cost as much as $150 that nobody tells you about until you find you have an ATON transfer rejection because of only one account not having quite enough cash in it. 2) Make sure you are out of spreads for at least 3 weeks. It could take that long to get the job done. 3) Don't make trades in your old platform while you are waiting for the transfer. This will slow the whole thing down because they now have to wait for the trades to clear. 4) Stay on top of it daily. I have become a pest to the IB sales department and the TOS TD group. Monitor daily what the status is. I still hope that my transfer will be completed this upcoming week so I can get back to trading. I am going through withdrawal. Cheers Tom
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TraderJack, I also use TOS and tried doing the paper money thing with them and had nothing but trouble setting it up and I like TOS's platform and Swim Lessons. I do not like their rates.
But I called them and got them to lower my rate to $7.00 and .75/contract. Helps a bit, but I do know that with a bit of volume they will come down more. I hope that helps.
I do wonder if SO would approach TOS on behalf of all TOS users for better rates? Obviously there is power in numbers.
I didn't want to start a whole thread here because the last time we went down this road, it set off a whole chain of posts that had limited productivity for this site.
Feel free to get back to me.
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Thanks for the note. I can probably talk them down to 7.00. I have a pretty good relationship with TDA's support. As I recall, IB charges $0.65 per contract which, for, say, 20 contracts amounts to a difference of 2.00, not huge. I forget what they charge for filled orders. Something like 5.00 per I think. Again, not huge. It doesn't really seem worth the hassle to switch accounts over. Plus TOS is far and away the best analysis and order entry tool I've seen. (I've tried some others). I've used Paper Money a lot for simulated trades. Once you get it figured out, it's pretty cool. In fact, I made a small fortune using Paper Money. I just wish I could do the same with Real Money, lol.
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Thanks for the response. When I hear complaints about the IB software, I feel happy to be with TOS. I like their training, and I their platform is very powerful and like you say has some great analysis and order entry tools. Again, I use Paper Money a lot. Like you, I wish I could translate that into real money. But I know I can't get the same fills in Paper Money but it is still a great practice tool.
I tried using Dough to take advantage of their deal with TOS, but since I am not an American I can't take advantage of that. I forget what it is but I think they are significantly lower.
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Just testing and have a question. Do you know whether or not these chat's are just between the members or do all members see these?
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Nevermind Performance vs. SteadyOptions Performance
Skepticlion replied to Nevermind's topic in General Board
Nevermind, Great log and analysis.