I suppose you are not involved with options? It’s a well-known fact that options can be used to hedge against downside risks. Also, if you want to buy stocks, it helps you lower the cost basis of the stock purchase like selling put and so on. It can also generate extra cash for income. But options are not for everyone, it is fairly complex and needs to be understood well, otherwise, one can lose crazy amount of money without knowing why.
I’m not an active trader and I don’t earn a lot of money for now to try to be one. I only invest my tiny monthly savings on IB, convert my CHF in USD, and buy 10-11 shares of VT. So the Web interface is perfect for what I need.
But I’m listening every morning an amateur podcast about trading and news which sometimes talk about options, futures, put, call, warrant without really understand how to deal with it. Maybe after my internship and after having a real job I will dedicate some times to understand these investments tools 
(and blame the TWS interface 
)
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Haha, good attitude! Hope you succeed!
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Maybe my answer sounded a bit harsh that was obiously not my intention since I share your opinion that IBKR looks like it didn’t see any development since the 1990’s.
But I’m still interested especially from a mathematics and data point of view. From reading papers and studies on the stock market from 1926-2020 it was really hard to beat the index the longer the investment horizon is, although possible. Another conclusion was that with limiting the downside of a portfolio it was almost always the case that you missed out on gains afterwards because there seems to also be some timing luck involved when actively trading.
Everything just from a statistics point of view which really supports how my brain works → just data and no emotions and that really helps for me personally to fully go into passive investments.
Maybe you can tell from experience but is active trading nowadays only to limit downside risks? Or is there still a consensus in the banking and wealth management industry that people want to beat the index eventhough statistically they will fail?
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No harsh feelings, just in for a good talk. 
The common knowledge or reception about no one beating the market is not entirely true. To just name a few Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch and T. Rowe Price. I’ve never said it’s easy. Beating the market while operating a huge fund is a tough job. Warren Buffet once said that if you give him a million, he can generate 50% of return all day. So, the reason has to do with the size of the fund because once your trade size becomes too large, you basically move with market thus affect the outcome. So, this is that part of the problem.
If you don’t run a multi-billion dollar fund, it’s actually quite possible to beat the market. Not a lot of people are willing to spend the time doing the research or people simply don’t have the knowledge to do so. Buffet also once said, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you diversify. People on this forum tend to invest in ETFs because this is for them the easiest and risk-adjusted and well-diversified option.
If you believe in one company and hold just one or two stocks over the period of 10 years. You will beat the market by a large margin. ETF and mutual funds cannot do that, because the risk is simply too great for the collective investment vehicle.
When I say actively trading, I really mean actively managed my own investment. I do not day trade or speculate. If you held just two or three stocks back in 2015, let’s say, NFLX, TSLA and AAPL, or even bitcoin, you would beat the hell out of the benchmark. I know a lot of people achieved financial freedom by doing just that. To get that 10 or 20x. It’s not impossible or some myths. You just have to really do your research and have a vision and understand the company you invest in. There is however always risk associated with it.
I’m not bashing passive investment, because I also invest some of my savings in passive ETFs. But it will take you much longer to achieve your goal and it is also not guaranteed as many of you think, because even a SP500 ETF can also yield just 2% after 10 years. The timing and the economic environment are the key! Let’s take an example of dot-com bubble back in 2000-2001. If you invested at the peak of the market, it’d take you 10 years to just recoup your initial investment! So nothing is guaranteed, even with your passive strategy.
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sorry, guys, I still have to bash IBRK a bit. When I log in to the web-based version of IBKR. It often hangs and the page fails to load data. It’s always loading and I have to click “fresh” to get it going again. Is it on your end like that too?
…with a broadly diversified portfolio, that is.
I agree with (and have previously stated similarly) with violetblau:
Beating a broadly diversified index may not be easy - but easily possible, once you give up the goal of diversifying in a similar manner.
You are unlikely to find one broker that is the best at everything.
IBKR is not the best user interface but I have my assets there because the margin loan rate is ~1% vs. TDA is ~9% and because of the wider choice of international products
I have a residual account balance at TDA of $100 which gives me free access to ThinkorSwim including live data. I have used that for my research then placed order in IBKR.
I stopped doing this since I did not want to put my unrealised capital gains at risk of being taxed (see discussions about professional trader and tax)
Mister Hindsight totally agrees with you on that one but did your ball of future tell you that these stocks will perform so well?
So you tell me that it is easy to beat the market? Why is noone doing this then? If you can do it that easily why are you not selling your picks or strategy for others to make loads of money?
I agree that it is possible for a timeframe between 5-10 years but if you have a timeframe of 30 years it’s really really really hard.
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unrealized capital gains are not taxed. I don’t know who told you that.
@Barto probably mean’t that he doesn’t want to risk becoming classified as a professional trader and tactics used to lower the cost basis can be seen as professional trading by the tax authorities.
Not unrealized gains
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Please can you support this by quoting official tax rules of Switzerland?
I have a hard time to believe that unrealized gains are also being taxed.
Yes, you are right, I fixed my post. He probably meant that he doesn’t want to risk that his unrealised gains get taxed once he realises them being classified as professional trader.
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I’m sorry, I fixed my post, please see my reply below.
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Yes this is what I meant. Apologies I was not clear.
I don’t want to be at risk of being taxed when I sell and realise gains. The extra income I would earn writing put options to open positions is small in comparison and not worth the risk
(If I had already realised the gains it would not be a problem because I have not been classified as a professional trader so far )
As for additional income the marginal tax rate is relevant, 10% would be very low. E.g. in ZH you have a marginal tax rate of about 30% at a taxable income of 120k. And with AHV that would be 40%.
Just the marginal federal tax rate is already 8.8% at 120k.
Yes, that’s roughly the number for an unmarried person in Zurich city. Remember, this is the marginal tax rate, not the average one. 10% cantonal tax, 12% communal tax, 8.8% federal tax.
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There was a guy on this forum retiring with 11 million gains on Bitcoin. Did you?
So you have a 100k portfolio. What do you do with your trading gains? What about going back to basics and learn about compounding interest?
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You pay roughly 10k more taxes for 40k more income so the marginal tax rate is about 25%. So for 40k rather high risk options income you give 25% to the state. (Correct me if I’m wrong)
I think most people on this forum think rational and an annualized return of 40% is rather delusional not because of jealousy but there is now way you just invented your private money printing machine. Im open for discussions if you are too 
.
EDIT: Of course I’m prone for faults like any human being so I might be talking bullshit but that’s just how I think when someone is writing about annualized profits of 40% with options like it was some pocket change money.