Interactive Brokers for dummies

Investing / Brokers
15

Alright, I’ll check it out for the next transfer. Thanks!

So the simple instruction for dummies of your first purchase at IB would be:

  1. Transfer 10’000 CHF to IB using the CH IBAN (not GB)
  2. Login to WebTrader, check that you have 10’000 CHF
  3. Click on the Forex tab, enter CHF, look for the CHF.USD
  4. Enter the amount 10’000 and choose the type SELL
  5. You should now have 0 CHF and everything converted to USD
  6. Go to Stocks tab and type in VT, select the type BUY

What I’m not so aware of: how safe it is to execute stock trades and currency conversions at market price (MKT)? Using the limit (LMT) can be confusing, especially if you sell a Forex pair. So should I manually put the ASK price for a BUY (and BID for a SELL) as limit, or is this exactly what MKT does?

By the way, they told me on the phone that IB UK is actually located in Switzerland (hence the +41 phone number). Funny huh?

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