Interactive Brokers Review 2024

Trust

Interactive Brokers Regulators

• Interactive Brokers LLC is regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). We rate the SEC and CFTC as Tier 1 regulators.
• Interactive Brokers Canada Inc. is a member of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). We rate IIROC as a Tier 1 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers (UK) Limited (IBUK) is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), register entry number 208159. We rate FCA as a Tier 1 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), reference number C423427. We rate CBI as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Central Europe Zrt. is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Hungary (Magyar Nemzeti Bank) under no. H-EN-III-623/2020. We rate MNB as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers India Pvt. Ltd. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Registration No. INZ000217730. We rate SEBI as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Securities Japan Inc. is a member of the Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA). We rate JSDA as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Hong Kong Limited is regulated by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). We rate SFC as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Singapore Pte. Ltd. is licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), license number CMS100917. We rate MAS as a Tier 2 regulator.
• Interactive Brokers Australia Pty. Ltd. is licensed and regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), AFSL number 453554. We rate ASIC as a Tier 1 regulator.

Why is It Important to Know Where Your Broker Subsidiary (Entity) is Regulated?

In order to serve clients worldwide, brokers must have multiple regional entities. The level of client protection guaranteed by regional regulators varies widely. Here are some of the key features to check on at your broker`s regional entity:

• Segregation of client funds. Segregating client funds from the operating capital of a broker prevents misuse, ensuring that traders’ funds can not be used for operational expenses or speculative investments. At Interactive Brokers, all client funds are held in segregated accounts away from the company’s funds.
• Negative balance protection. This is a guarantee that clients cannot lose more than their account balance, even if the market unexpectedly makes a massive move or gaps. Clients of the UK entity and several other entities benefit from negative balance protection.
• Compensation scheme. A compensation scheme protects client funds in the unlikely event that the broker becomes insolvent. Clients of the UK entity benefit from account insurance of up to £85,000 via the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and clients of the EU entity are covered by CySEC ICF up to €20,000.
• Maximum leverage. Limiting leverage controls the level of risk traders can take on. The higher the leverage, the higher the potential profits and losses. UK clients have access to maximum leverage of 1:30.

Stability and Transparency

In our tests for the Trust category, we also cover factors relating to stability, financial strength, security, and transparency. Here, we focus on the broker’s longevity, the company’s size, and its transparency.

Interactive Brokers has a 45-year operating history. It is a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq with a market cap of 50B USD. As a publicly traded company, Interactive Brokers must disclose financial reports, allowing for greater insight into the company’s stability.

In our research, Interactive Brokers showed a high level of transparency in its regulatory status, fees, and general background information. The materials are readily available on the website. Interactive Brokers lists its regulatory status at the footer of each page. The Pricing menu in the horizontal navigation clearly outlines all costs, such as commissions and margin interest rates. Traders can find the Client Agreements in the accounts section of the website.

Is Interactive Brokers Safe to Trade With?

To conclude, we rate Interactive Brokers as highly trustworthy and stable due to the following factors:

• Regulated by multiple top-tier agencies worldwide
• Has a lengthy operating history
• It is a publicly traded company valued at over 50 billion USD
• Has a high level of transparency

Fees

Interactive Brokers Trading Fees

Interactive Brokers Spreads

I tested the spreads at Interactive Brokers across various markets during the London open and after the New York open on 12 July 2024. At these times, the market is typically highly liquid with the tightest spreads.

Spreads are most competitive in CFDs on forex, gold, and shares. Meanwhile, indices are closer to the industry average.

Interactive Brokers Swap Fees

The table below shows an example of Interactive Brokers’ swap fees. Swaps represent the fees charged (or credit earned) for holding a position overnight.

The values listed below are for one full contract (100,000 units) of the base currency.

I recorded the data on 18 July 2024. My tests showed that swap fees are average for the industry.

Interactive Brokers Non-Trading Fees

For individual accounts, there is no minimum deposit and no inactivity fees.

Are Interactive Brokers Fees Competitive?

IBKR has built a reputation of being highly competitive when it comes to fees, and I found this true in my tests. The spreads, commissions, and margin interest rates are among the most favorable in the industry.

Platforms and Tools

Client Portal

The web-based client portal allows traders to check quotes, place trades, and see their account balance and reports. Traders can stay on top of key account metrics such as net liquidation value, profit and loss (P&L), and buying power in real time.

The Client Portal home page shows traders their rate of return, portfolio positions, recent transactions, notifications and messages, and available cash. Traders can also easily place orders, manage open orders, and view recent trades from any page in the Client Portal using the slide-out trade ticket. The interface is user-friendly and intuitive, making it a good starting point for beginners and casual traders.

Trader Workstation (TWS)

Trader Workstation (TWS) provides access to trading in stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds, and funds on over 150 markets worldwide from a single unified platform. The default mosaic view inside TWS comprises a series of individual panels operating within a highly configurable interface.

In the upper left of the screen, you can see the order entry window, which includes the price quote for a specified financial instrument. This window lets you quickly enter a buy or sell order that you can submit to an exchange. Available order types include:

• Market Orders: Traders use market orders to buy or sell an instrument at the best current price.
• Limit Orders: Traders use limit orders to buy or sell an instrument at a specified price or better.
• Stop Loss Orders: Traders use stop-loss orders to buy or sell an instrument when its price reaches a specified level.
• Trailing-Stop Order: Traders use trailing stop-loss orders as a stop-loss order at a defined percentage or dollar amount away from an instrument’s current market price. This order type allows traders to secure profits when they are in a winning trade while not having to exit the position.
• Bracket Orders: Bracket orders are designed to allow traders to limit losses and lock in profits by “bracketing” an order with two opposite-side orders.

At the bottom left of the screen is an activity panel where you can review open orders, completed trades, and a summary of your activity. The news panel is in the lower right corner. Above it is the monitor panel where you can view your portfolio and open multiple watchlists.

The TWS platform has many preconfigured layouts based on different markets and trading styles. The FX Trading layout allows users to create spot and futures orders with a single click and is set up with popular forex pairs and futures. Within the same screen, traders can stay on top of economic events and forex news with event calendars and streaming news feeds. Traders can also create and save unique layouts suiting their preferences.

The TWS platform includes robust charting, over 90 technical indicators, candle sizes varying from 5 seconds to monthly, multiple drawing tools, and trading from the chart.

TWS Market Scanners search specified markets and return contracts based on the defined criteria. Traders can use custom scans they have set up themselves or work with predefined scans from a library, such as US Movers or Dividend Yield.

My Key Takeaways After Testing the Trader Workstation Trading Platform

Trader Workstation is one of the most advanced platforms available to retail traders. It provides access to over 150 markets along with robust trading, order management, chart, watchlist, and portfolio tools – all in a unified, highly customizable interface.

I was also impressed by the news and research materials from leading sources like Reuters, Dow Jones, Morningstar, and Zacks. I rate this selection as far better than average for the industry.

IBKR Mobile App

The IBKR mobile app provides access to trading in CFDs, forex, stocks, options, futures, currencies, and bonds. Charting is robust, with over 90 technical indicators.

Traders can use a broad range of order types, including market, stop, stop limit, market if touched, limit if touched, trail, and trail limit. The app also features watchlists, scanners, a news feed with stories from Reuters and Dow Jones, and an economic calendar.

IBKR GlobalTrader

The GlobalTrader app is more user-friendly and slightly stripped down in comparison to the IBKR mobile app. Traders can access over 90 stock markets worldwide.

Beginners can trade in fractions of shares, investing as little as $1. The app has popular features such as watchlists, scanners, and a newsfeed, allowing traders to stay on top of the markets from the palm of their hand.

My Key Takeaways After Testing the IBKR Mobile and IBKR GlobalTrader Apps

The IBKR Mobile app caters to intermediate and advanced traders and offers the full range of stocks, options, futures, currencies, and bonds from over 150 markets worldwide. The more intuitive GlobalTrader app is designed for beginners and intermediate traders and offers global stocks, ETFs, and options within an intuitive interface.

Interactive Brokers Order Execution Model

Interactive Brokers operates the Direct Market Access (DMA) execution model. In this model, the provider hedges the CFD order immediately in the underlying physical market, and the CFD is executed at the price of the hedge.

Tradable Instruments

We rated Interactive Brokers as especially strong in the areas of CFDs on forex, shares, and indices but found room for improvement in CFDs on commodities.

In addition to CFDs, IBKR offers a massive range of global instruments, including 64,000+ real shares and ETFs, 12,000+ futures and options, and 4,200+ exchange-traded indices.

What are CFDs?

A Contract for Difference (CFD) is an agreement specifying that the buyer must pay the seller the difference between an asset’s current value and its value at the time the contract was initiated. Like futures and other derivative financial instruments, CFDs allow traders to speculate on price movements without owning the underlying asset.

What Can You Trade with Interactive Brokers?

In the tables below, you can see a selection highlighting the variety of CFD instruments available at Interactive Brokers:

My Key Takeaways After Exploring Interactive Brokers Tradable Instruments

Overall, Interactive Brokers offers an outstanding range of instruments across all asset classes and from every corner of the world. While the number of commodity CFDs is quite low, traders can access a broader range of commodities through the futures market.

Customer Support

Clients can contact IBKR’s customer service from Sunday afternoon through Friday evening, New York time. The support is not available on Saturday.

For phone and chat, users must navigate numerous questions before reaching an operator, which can take time and effort.

I tested the support with many questions, from easy to hard. For example, whether one-click trading is available in the TWS platform and how to calculate overnight swap fees. In some instances, I received answers from highly knowledgeable industry professionals, but the experience sometimes felt more like a call center.

Deposit and Withdrawal

In the tables below, I break down the fees and processing times for each available deposit and withdrawal method.

Deposits

Withdrawals

Account Types and Terms

Interactive Brokers offers a wide variety of base currencies (the currency in which your account is denominated).

Account Application

To open an individual account at Interactive Brokers UK, prospective clients must answer the following questions.

• Name.
• Address.
• Citizenship.
• Country of birth.
• Phone.
• Date of birth.
• Marital status.
• Number of dependents.
• Tax residency.
• Social security number.
• Proof of identification (passport, driver’s license, national identity card, alien identification card).
• Employment status.
• Source of wealth.

Demo Accounts

Interactive Brokers offers a free simulated account with a balance of $1M, which traders can use across all platforms: Client Portal, Trader WorkStation, IBKR Mobile, and the GlobalTrader app. Once users have gotten up to speed on a demo account, they can easily switch to a live version.

Islamic Accounts

Interactive Brokers does not offer a swap-free Islamic account.

Leverage

One of the reasons that traders are attracted to the forex and CFD markets is the high degree of available leverage. Leverage is the use of borrowed funds to increase the size of your trading positions beyond what would be possible using only the cash in your account.

CFD traders at Interactive Brokers UK can use leverage of up to 1:30. This means that with an account balance of $1,000, a trader can take on positions of up to $30,000 in the market.

Leverage is often described as a ‘double-edged sword’ because it can amplify your profits and losses. Leveraged trading comes with a high level of risk and can often result in significant losses.

Supported Countries

Interactive Brokers is available in most countries worldwide, except for FATF Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist countries such as North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar. FATF is an intergovernmental organization seeking to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.

Research

The Traders’ Insight section contains both written and video content. Topics are divided into various markets (stocks, commodities, forex, crypto) and analysis styles (macro, technical analysis). The material is in-depth, well-crafted, and primarily geared toward experienced traders.

Traders can learn about the general market outlook for the day, get up to speed with upcoming economic releases and browse technical trade ideas from various contributors.

My Takeaways from Exploring Interactive Brokers Research Content

IBKR clients have a wealth of research materials to work with from over 200 free and premium providers. This is complemented by powerful tools like the Mosaic Market Scanner, which can execute a range of predefined scans like top US movers.

Education

The broker provides lessons in video format that cover a broad range of topics, such as the basics of various markets, technical and fundamental analysis, and platform tutorials. Each subject is broken down into a series of easily digestible video lessons of less than ten minutes. The courses include contributions from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Options Industry Council (OIC).

Several live webinars each month complement the educational courses. Traders can watch, listen, and ask questions in live events on trading, world finance, and market trends. Interactive Brokers also offers weekly educational podcasts covering various trading industry-related themes and expert interviews.

Providing valuable content for beginners and advanced traders, I rated IBKR’s educational materials as better than average for the industry.

The Bottom Line

Interactive Brokers is one of the largest and most stable brokers in the world, with an impeccable trust rating based on our review criteria spanning regulation, financial strength, and transparency.

Importantly, forex and CFD traders at Interactive Brokers do not have to worry about widening spreads in volatile markets and the possibility of re-quotes, as they benefit from direct market access (DMA) and superior order execution. Based on my tests, Interactive Brokers offers some of the lowest spreads and commissions in the industry.

The flagship TWS platform presents a steeper-than-average learning curve due to its professional-grade features, but Interactive Brokers is taking action to better accommodate beginners with recent additions like the intuitive GobalTrader app.

There is room for improvement in customer service, especially with the time it takes to reach a live agent. While the overall number of assets to trade is excellent, some areas like CFDs on commodities could be better. The account funding and withdrawal process could also be improved by offering a wider range of payment/withdrawal methods.

With its outstanding fees, robust trading platforms, superior range of tradable markets, and first-class research materials, I rate Interactive Brokers as one of the best brokers for intermediate, advanced and professional traders.

FAQ