You can have a CHF account with IB, and trade Swiss stocks. I was using Swissquote for 3 years, until I started trading more frequently. Then the difference in commission was ridiculous - about 10 times more than I pay to IB.

Look here to compare commissions:

• http://www.swissquote.ch/sqweb/tradi...te_clients.jsp
• http://interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=commission

Trading a Swiss stock in 10K, you pay CHF 100 to Swissquote, and CHF 20 to IB. The difference, CHF 80, is 0.8% - meaning you would have to profit almost 1% more just to cover the cost difference. With higher turnover this becomes unbearable.

Putting costs aside, you have better trading tools with IB. Trailing stops, bracket orders, scaling in/out. Plus you can trade almost every market under the sun - forex, commodities, futures, you name it.

I'd say, if you want to invest you could live with Swissquote. If you want to trade, go with IB.