My Online Stock Option Brokers (Part 2)

Go to “Part 1”.

Interactive Brokers (IB):

• Fewer steps for placing a trading order, and hence it’s faster in order placement procedure. Very good for those who are already familiar with trading order placement.


• Fee and Charges for Options Transaction: USD 0.75 / contract.
  Minimum commission charges per order is USD 1.
  Hence, when you buy only 1 contract, they will charge you USD 1. And when you sell to close your position, they will charge you another USD 1.
  For more details, you can check out here.


• Minimum initial deposit to open an account: USD 5,000.


• For IB, after you apply for account opening, you need to get their approval first before you can open an account with them. After your application is approved, you can then proceed to fund the account. Please note that for IB, your account will get activated only after you fund the account.


• Getting market data (real-time streaming quotes) is not automatic after your account is activated. To get real-time market data, you need to subscribe market data. The monthly subscription fee is USD 10, but it will be waived if your monthly commission is more than USD 30.


• To do virtual trading in IB, you need to apply for it too. They will then open a virtual trading account with a different User ID and password, separated from your real trading account.


• IB charges minimum monthly fee of USD 10. So, after your account is activated, although you have not subscribed for market data, they will still charge you USD 10. But when you subscribe for market data and suppose you don’t have any trades at all (so commission charges = 0), they will charge you only USD 10 too, which is for the market data subscription (not USD 20 which is for minimum monthly fee plus market data subscription.
  Therefore, I think, if you choose to use IB, you should open an account with them only after you are ready to start real trading.


• When you make modification / cancellation for your order, they will charge you too. The charges will vary depending on exchanges. You can check here for more details.

Note:
I have no commercial affiliation with OptionsXpress (OX) or Interactive Brokers (IB). Nor am I recommending or promoting these brokers. Here, I’m only sharing with you my experience and what I know about the brokers I use. So, this is for informational purpose only. You should do your own research and comparison with the other brokers. Here is the list of some online stock options brokers.