Actually… No.
If you say that something is working, and others don’t believe you, show it. For now I don’t see your money there where your mouth is.
Keep it cool guys.
This thread is one day old, 50 messages and two third of it is drama without any link to the original topic.
That’s a good moment to remind everybody of the new Moderation Policy.
This kind of cheap shot is not needed here.
You’re not going to make a lot of friends as a newcomer with this kind of approach either.
Back to the topic:
I work also in the finance industry and I’ve seen with my own eyes half a dozen businesses powered by IBKR. They use it to handle all their trading needs. Hell, even hedge funds use IBKR.
If institutionals use IBKR, I doubt a retail investor won’t be able to fit their needs.
Users with simple needs (buying ETFs or shares) can use the portal of the mobile app. For more demanding needs, nothing beats TWS. Yes, the user interface is ugly. But if you are working in finance you should know that people absolutely don’t care about that (the most used tool in the industry - by a mile - is Bloomberg Terminal, which is at least as ugly as TWS). Institutionals don’t want fancy UIs, they want tools that work reliably at the lowest cost possible.
Anyway, i am sure you will find how to implement your option trading strategy in TWS. If you’re not sure how to, I’d advise you to play with the sandbox demo account.
10 Likes
Well done on the great trading results.
The professional trader risk and consequences depend on personal circumstances.
If you have the same 120k salary and a larger portfolio that may make (say) 300k gains on long stock positions in good years, whilst perhaps also having a margin loan => the risk of being classified as a professional trader is higher. The downside would be having to pay tax + AVS on the 300k as well as any profits from options trading.
A word of caution here: gaining 40% return on option trading doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good/great trader. It can also mean that you are taking risks which are too high. Since we don’t know which options were traded and how the risk management looked like, it’s just a number.
From what I know, 20% return on option trading per year is considered pretty good. Of course you can have better years as well, but the most important part is to have proper risk management and not lose your equity when things don’t go as planned.
Just as a warning for others who might be tempted to get into option trading.
2 Likes
Hi Mod @Julianek , thank you for intervening. Appreciate it. Interesting take here. Can you tell us what kind of financial institutions use IBKR, is that an asset management firm or trading desk or prop trading?
I don’t agree with you on the Bloomberg Terminal UI. I use Bloomberg a lot. That platform is super duber refined and polished. The workflow and user experience are topnotch. You can’t compare IBKR with BB. You can’t judge the aesthetics of the UI design. That’s to personal preference. But look at the layout and the quality of each button/icon and responsiveness there, they are just so well made. An almost 30k annual fee for the terminal says it all.
IBKR UI is a broken design. It’s bloated and cumbersome to use. The width of each field drives me nuts. And it’s sluggish and doesn’t utilize graphics card acceleration. If I click on something, it needs to be quick! I can’t wait for the software to refresh its interface to show me the numbers. Every sec counts. It feels flat overall.
In my humble career, I have not yet seen a firm using IBKR as their main trading platform. BB is always the way to go or institution’s own software. IBKR has an API and expansion tools for algo trading. I would imagine that some props or algo trading companies would use it for their automated trading. Companies use that primarily to save cost.
I played a bit with the option strategy box of IBKR, it’s horrible. After using TD, it is just day and night.
I’m using TWS and the mobile application.
Just from how this thread developed I cannot understand your bashing against IB? If it’s so horrible, then use another provider? For some Schwab is perfect, for another one it’s Ameritrade. But I cannot see the sense of joining this forum where the people are focused on a better expense-revenue ratio - which Interactive Brokers provides.
You are not paying CHF 2’400 per month for IB as for Bloomy or something similar. The min. mothly fee of CHF 10 is even gone, for IB. But yes, I liked the keyboard only navigation pretty much as well 
If you are not satisfied with IB, then use another provider - e.g. another all-in-one solution or you are using IB to execute transactions but doing the reserach on another platform. Or buy shares and ETFs on IB, option on another platform.
I am sure, you are creative.
4 Likes
I am facing another shameful issue with IBKR Mobile. In the good old days where volatility was low I once setup alerts for basic indexes like SPY, QQQ, VT for more than 2% price changes. Now it became the new normal and I am receiving an email + push notification almost every day. Naturally I went to app and tried to switch off these notifications but guess what! After spending hours I am still not able to find a way to do that.
Normally you go to the notifications, click on the wheel and somehow you should manage it but nope, not so easy! The closest thing on the menu is “user defined alerts” but I cannot click on it, cannot disable it, nothing… Every search on the internet says that I should go to trading assistant but where the hell is that?
After spending far too much time I found this explanation:
Trading Assistant (TA) feature of the IBKR Mobile app is only supported for a single account structure. In case you have linked accounts, it is not possible to modify existing notifications you might have set up when you had a single account. However, if you wish to cancel the existing notifications entirely, Client Services can disable them on your behalf. Please note that canceling notifications would mean removing the whole set of notifications. It is not possible to remove any particular notification among the whole set. However, this will not affect active alerts you might have for your accounts, as it is a different feature
Seems like I lost access to Trading Assistant since I opened the second account. I just created a ticket to disable a notification at this level of technology we have. Not sure what to say… It is just pity!
I was a customer 2 years ago, when I simply failed to buy an ETF, even with the cash being there. Half a dozen messages popped up refering to whatever. I gave up and closed my account.
After having experienced some European brokers handle sanctions for Russian shares, I felt the need to go somewhere where ownership is honored and markets are plenty. I rolled up my sleeves and am now proud owner of two positions, purchased with ultralow commissions. Can’t believe though, I had to convert to foreign currencies for my limit orders. They should hire an UX person! (rant completed!) 
To stay on topic:
I believe IBKR “apps” are made by IBKR users. They “dogfood” a lot, as it’s said.
This is sometimes positive ( See examples of applications that never change the interface because it was already “perfect”) and sometimes is negative (new users don’t understand it maybe?)
I’ve never used a bloomberg terminal, but I’ve seen one: Terrible UI, but people learned how to use it and they are blazingly fast in using it. Same probably here. The UI is perfect for whoever find it perfect. Everyone else struggle to learn it. This is for the Pro version of IBKR (TWS? I forgot the name).
For the more hobby/retail user, they decided to give us the portal (forgot again the correct name).
The Portal should be the one that should get more attention from their devs and I believe they are doing it. Slowly. Too slow maybe?