As I understand it (I called to ask TDA about the situation) it has to do with transaction regulations. The amount of money in question is listed as "unsettled cash" - said cash IS yours, and it IS in your account - but you can't actually re-invest it until T+3 has elapsed. BTW, as I understand it,* you only get this situation if you hold a security for fewer than 3 days - "T+3" in question refers to the number of days (3) after time (T) of purchase - not the time of sale.

Apparently, by letting you continue to trade with "unsettled cash" they are technically loaning you the money, hence the need for margin-trading privileges.

Also: That a Swiss bank would charge interest on a "loan" of this sort (as per Urs Max) is ... well ... yeah. Pretty much what I expected. Definitely in the category of fine-print gotchas.

*If you're new to this thread: I'm new to investing, so please double-check this statement before basing any decisions on it! (Actually, always double-check anything written in a forum - but I'm trying to be responsible here!)

Well, it isn't as good as the 5% I had before my stock started back downhill - but it's better than the -3% point where it level out next day ...

From where can you get free realtime data? Can you list a source please?

IB only offers FX data for free. For everything else there is a charge.

With TDA, I was always able to reinvest immediately, there is some info missing.
They don't pay for 3 days either, so nobody is lending anyone money.
I have been investing for over 30 years & never came across this 'issue'

I generally like to hold for minimum of 30%, 4000% plus in the case of Netflix & Bidu.

Swissquote gives free access to realtime quotes and order book info. Keeping an empty account with them is free.

US realtime quotes are also widely available online

For what you describe, IB is perfect.

Open a margin account as suggested already, to avoid the settlement issues with a cash account (and give you flexibility with leverage if / when you want or are eventually trading other products such as options).

Minimum account opening is $10k. Commissions are far better than with TD…..you'll pay some some small fees for market data.

As you maybe will realise, you can continue to use TD / ToS for charting, as it is far better than IB. I use IB for execution only and charting elsewhere. A lot of day traders I know open a ToS account (TD) just for charting.

I just went to open an IB account but they seem to make this deliberately impossible for someone travelling.

I am currently in Asia, and whenever I click on Open Account -> Trader or Investor, I get a lovely page full of ideograms.

I explicitly select "English" using the world picture, but then on trying to open an account it's back to ideograms. There doesn't seem to be a way to explicitly select my territory of residence, just language, and the language selection doesn't work.

GeoIP, or whatever, might be acceptable as a fallback to choose a default if no other information is available. Ignoring information provided by the user and reverting to localisation based on GeoIP is idiotic. Failing to allow the user to provide such information at all is unforgivably stupid.

Does the rest of the IB service seem like it was designed and implemented by retarded monkeys dropped on their heads at birth?

Get the mobile app.

there are some weird things that happen with the website, especially in Chrome. IE seems to be more stable and the app is really good.

I also get a strange mix of german and english language message from them. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the language selection.

Small price to pay though still

I have just tried to submit a query about this via their contact form on their web site.

This has a mandatory field "Topic", which is a drop-down list, but the list is empty. Thus, it is not possible to choose a value. On trying to submit the form, the user is told "Please correct the following mandatory fields: Subject: Please Choose one".

Thus, it is impossible to contact them via their contact form.

Nothing. ing. Works.

I don't see any bug in that form. You select subject from the list first, then topic menu gets populated and you can choose there.

IB sure has its quirks, I'm being logged out far too often when doing trade for example, and UI isn't very polished, but it's one of the cheapest, yet solid brokers around. I guess you get what you pay for. You can take your business elsewhere. But swiss brokers will charge an order of magnitude (if not several orders) more than IB

US tax question if somebody knows:

if one sends a good amount of CHF to the Interactive brokers account and does an FX conversion to USD and then withdraws the USD in the US for the purpose of paying expenses or even buying property is there a tax liability (gain or loss) for the FX conversion? I assume that he waits a few days for the best rate after the initial deposit (that is the FX conversion date is after the initial deposit date).

No FX trades just one FX conversion and then USD is taken out.

I tried to create an IB account today.

Got verification mail, followed link, checked domain correct, completed username/password form, clicked "Login".

Nothing happened.

Tried again, with different browser. Nothing happened.

Phoned them, waited in queue for 15 minutes, described issue. Apparently they are doing maintenance on their systems, and this issue is a result of that.

Apparently, IB as an entity thinks it's okay to serve up something looking like a form to new users, and when they try to submit the form... nothing. The browser doesn't even indicate
trying to submit a form. Just: nothing. Meanwhile, some genius has decided it's important the button is green, and does a whizzy transition effect to white when the mouse cursor hovers over it. That bit works. Pressing the button.. doesn't work.

When I was in a team managing and operating IT services, on the rare occasions we had to make a service (component) unavailable for maintenance, we would plan communication. If on a web site, we'd deliver a simple, descriptive message to anyone trying to use it, stating the nature, scope and expected timings of the service outage.

No one bothers with any of this any more, including the slap-dash clowns at IB. The world is fast approaching a point where not a single financial web site actually works. The infrastructure, development, everything, is done by incompetents.

"oh well I never have problems" - yeah, right. None of it works.

Yeah account management is down. In the middle of trading day, not nice

But i can hardly complain for the prices they're charging. Your other alternative is to pay big $$$ to a swiss broker then you can bitch all your want on the hotline about it, or a client advisor in person over a "free" coffee

yip, you get what you pay for. i've spent hours on their online chat system describing genuine bugs on their platform. it's a total pain. but hey, it's cheap. that said though ....

i'm considering moving everything to tastyworks. they are a much better experience and fees are pretty good too. the slight difference is visible in that it goes to supporting the client.

Guys has anyone tried to deposit to IB through transferwise? Would it work?

you're doing it wrong, transfer to IB directly from your bank (via SWIFT or SEPA or ACH) and convert currency at IB, much cheaper.

(offtopic): I read this comment in Bender voice. This avatar suits your writing style

Little problem... My bank charges me 20chf for an international wire transfer abroad even if in chf

Oh, but IB has a local swiss IBAN you can use for CHF. Check payment instructions again, they've updated it. The actual account it corresponds to is still same old, at Citibank UK, just there's a way to clear the payment locally without SWIFT - it just so happens that that Citibank is connected to both CH and UK.

Hi.
I am resident in CH and I am trying to understand the differences (from a fiscal point of view) between investing from a Swissquote and an IB account.

Can you confirm that I won't need to pay stamp duty on ETFs listed in UK/Germany/Italy... if purchased from an IB account?
This would automatically make IB much cheaper than Swissquote, even ignoring orher aspects (custody fees, FX rate conversion, etc).

Thanks