Interactive Brokers have been part of the financial industry for a very long time. They are one of the longest serving brokerage firms in the world at this moment.
They have been in business for 39 years, and that comes with a wealth of experience in offering sound investment products and services to their vast customer base from all around the world.
Interactive Brokers Review
Interactive Brokers in the UK was the brainchild of Thomas Peterfly who has been involved in the trading business at a personal level for many years before the brokerage firm came to be.
When they claim that they are an institution built for the trader’s well being they are not lying because most of the members in their management have come from a trading background and they understand what traders need to be successful consistently.
They have been able to acquire international recognition, and that can be seen by their wide reach, they have an office that handles their operations in almost all major financial districts in the world.
They are based in the United States in Greenwich, Connecticut where they have their headquarters based. They are also based in the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Russia, India, Estonia, and China.
With their reach, far and wide they have also been able to open their doors to employment opportunities, and this has led them to have a reliable workforce of 960 employees in total for all their branches around the world.
Interactive Brokers: Financial Services
Interactive Brokers offer many services, and this has led them to grow their equity base to an impressive $5 billion. They have over 100 markets available for their clients who are both individual investors and corporate investors who seek their dealer agency services.
Their input and influence in the financial industry have been stamped because they have been graded as an investment grade company by Standard and Poors who are a well-respected audit and quality firm in the United States.
Interactive Brokers in the UK are known to provide direct market access and trade execution to their traders; this allows their traders to get better fills for their trades, and thus trading becomes cheaper.
They have an assortment of assets for their clients; CFDs, forex, futures, bonds, options, stocks and much more from the 100 markets they are sourced from.
They have been able to improve their trading technology to the point that they are able to execute 1000000 trades a day for their clients which to most firms is what they handle in a month.
They would not be able to handle all these financial services around the world if they were not regulated, so they have several bodies from around the world that track their activities to ensure they stay in line.
They have the SEC, FIPA, NYSE, FCA, SEHK, HKFE, and many more bodies from where they are situated who keep them in check to avoid any financial malpractice from their side.
For any United Kingdom trader or investor, they can confirm this by checking their FCA regulatory license which is FNR 208159. They have been awarded severally by Barrons for their trading software as being the best for several years now.
They have stamped their mark in the financial industry as the 16th largest Unites States Securities firm, and they handle 16% of all the options trades in the market now that will resonate with many traders who are looking for reliability and a reputable broker.
Interactive Brokers Fees and Trading Platforms
Interactive Brokers in the UK have one of the best trading software’s in the world, for this reason, they have been recognized by Barrons. That is just one reason why their platforms are good, the other reason which is more important are the features they have on their platforms.
They have a desktop platform, the web trading platform and the mobile trading platform that is both available on Android and iOS operating systems. The desktop trading platform is popularly known as the Trade Workstation (TWS).
Some of the features that the TWS has is the TWS Mosaic, this feature allows the trader manage the open trades, it offers the trading charts that are very comprehensive, the mosaic includes the watch list and portfolio tools and the workspace available is customizable to fit the trader's preferences.
The other feature is the classic TWS; this allows the trader to enter trades quickly by quick order click entries. There is the research, news and market data feature which provides live news feeds from the top data feed providers in the world; Dow Jones, Thomson Reuters, Benzinga and many other providers.
The other feature on the platform is the real time monitoring feature; the trader can easily access the account window, the watch list, margin requirements tab, alerts tab, trades tab, and the profit and loss tab.
Interactive Brokers UK: Review of Their Trading Tools
Interactive Brokers have realized that it is important to offer trading tools to complement the powerful trading platform that they have provided for their clients.
They have the algos and trading tools, they have offered trading algorithms for traders who use automated trading for their trading or for traders who would want to automate their trading strategies.
Under the algos and trading tools, they have tools for technical analytics, options trading, and lastly tools for institutional trading activities.
They also offer risk management tools; under it, there is the IB risk navigator, model navigator, and a tool for checking the risk threshold for options trading called the option analytics. The other tool is the paper trading feature that helps the trader test their trading strategies before applying them to the real market.
Interactive Brokers Educational Resources
Every great trading based financial institution is also characterized by the education they offer their clients. Interactive Brokers in the UK have not been holding back their information at all, they have created the Trader University.
The education gives the trader a feel for what real trading education should be like and the course like structure gives the trader a step by step development which is very important for any trader who is learning to become a consistently profitable trader.
