Like Tree24Likes

Dumb question about Interactive Brokers: how do I invest money, instead of day trade?

Closed Thread
Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 1 2 3
  1. #21

    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    1,186
    Quote Originally Posted by Expat Lit Tchr:
    I converted half my 10,700 HKD into USD, and now I've placed that order for Apple
    the currency conversion is also a trade, so you pay fees for it (15hkd or 2usd if I'm not mistaken).

    So it's worth plan your activity and optimize (e.g. if you'll use the rest of your 10k HKD to buy us stocks, you'll have to convert it as well, and you'll get charged the 2usd fee again).

    Same for when you buy stocks. You paid 1usd fee for that 1 apple share, and if you plan to buy more, you'll pay 1usg again...worth planning your trades to optimize the fees.

    You have to pay 10usd of fees per month anyway, that's typically enough for 1currency conversion at 2usd each, and 8 stock purchases at a fee of 1usd each).

    Different markets/exchanges have different fees, so research before you do.

  2. #22

    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    15,557

    Following.


  3. #23

    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Posts
    3,240
    Haha thanks, so much for relying on Google!!

    These random US holidays confuse me approximately 12 times year. My favourite is their Mayday ... which is in September

  4. #24

    Hey thanks again for the info everyone! I went away from the message board for a few hours because I didn't want to clutter it with my posts. I appreciate the excellent advice. I think my account is a cash account. Also thanks for the note about the public holiday in the US--that saved me from a brain aneurysm--my orders say "PreSubmitted" and I assume they will not be filled until roughly 11 PM or so local time (Hong Kong time) on Tuesday. When I logged out of IB after making my initial (I think) successful buy requests, the screen said "you have been logged in without trading privileges," which was weird (!) and made me think I am indeed going to have to call IB on the phone to sort things out, as has been suggested. In any case, this thread has been so helpful for me, because it's good to know that I've tried to sort things out on my end (dealing with basic mistakes like the HKD-to-USD conversion issue) before I call them. But maybe the buy orders will be fulfilled tomorrow night. I hope so.


  5. #25

    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Posts
    210
    Quote Originally Posted by Expat Lit Tchr:
    the screen said "you have been logged in without trading privileges," which was weird (!) and made me think I am indeed going to have to call IB on the phone to sort things out, as has been suggested.
    FYI - mine does this if I open a second session without closing out the first and/or try to login without my 2FA. It has nothing to do with trading privileges on your account, just that session. Hope this helps!!
    Sage likes this.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Malaysia
    Posts
    401
    Quote Originally Posted by Expat Lit Tchr:
    Hey thanks again for the info everyone! I went away from the message board for a few hours because I didn't want to clutter it with my posts. I appreciate the excellent advice. I think my account is a cash account. Also thanks for the note about the public holiday in the US--that saved me from a brain aneurysm--my orders say "PreSubmitted" and I assume they will not be filled until roughly 11 PM or so local time (Hong Kong time) on Tuesday. When I logged out of IB after making my initial (I think) successful buy requests, the screen said "you have been logged in without trading privileges," which was weird (!) and made me think I am indeed going to have to call IB on the phone to sort things out, as has been suggested. In any case, this thread has been so helpful for me, because it's good to know that I've tried to sort things out on my end (dealing with basic mistakes like the HKD-to-USD conversion issue) before I call them. But maybe the buy orders will be fulfilled tomorrow night. I hope so.

    Presubmitted means that IB has received your order and is keeping it on their servers until they are able to place the order at the appropriate stock exchange.

    Cash account: this explains why you first had to convert HKD into USD before you were able to buy something (e.g. stock) which has a price in USD. If you had a margin account IB would have allowed you to borrow USD from them to buy the stock. Of course you would have to pay debit interest on this USD loan with them in such a case. But it saves you the hassle of having to convert currency.

    At IB you can be logged in for trading on only one device at a time. Any secondary log on to their website will not allow you to trade or look at real-time market data. So any secondary logon will result in this "..without trading privileges" warning message. This also applies if you use their TWS trading software and want to log on via the website at the same time.