spanish national here. i live in switzerland right now and signed up to IBKR for a margin account they put under the UK jurisdiction of IBKR, why? if im not in the UK and i don't live in the EU, shouldn't i be placed under the US jurisdiction and is it possible to request a change?
i've been trading stocks for 2 years successfully on another broker who didn't offer margin. now opened an account with IBKR and just funded it and didn't trade yet but very happy with the platform. i have some questions though:
i only trade USD stocks and I chose USD as my base currencty but i deposited chf 6000 chf (im in switzerland). now my account automatically shows that money in USD but it keeps fluctuating. right now shows $7,534.69 but every min it can go a bit lower and higher which i assume is the chf-usd exchange rate fluctuations in real time. my question is, should i exchange chf to usd inside the app before placing my first trade or not? im also surprised that the transfer from my swiss bank to my ibkr account was so fast and there was no fee deducted even though IBKR is a US broker.
cash 7,535.52. Buying Power 30,138.75. i don't mean this negatively but i dont understand why my buying power is 4x my cash. i thought ibkr offers 2:1 marging which is basically 50%. based on that, i would assume that my buying power should be double my deposited cash, so it should be roughly $15,000. isn't it? but it's 4x instead. so, does this mean i could right now buy a stock with $30.138 ? could someone explain why my buying power is 4x my deposit instead of 2x.
i see that IBKR offers paid data subcription packages for USA stocks but i already use a separate paid tool for technical analysis i use stockcharts.com so i shouldn't pay for anything separately on IBKR, correct? basically i don't even need to do any analysis inside the IBKR interface since Im already used to using stockcharts and is good enough for me. so i just have to place trades directly on IBKR without worrying about their charts or trading platforms, correct?
meaning for someone like me who holds positions from a few days up to a few months?
i've been trading stocks for 2 years successfully on another broker who didn't offer margin. now opened an account with IBKR and just funded it and didn't trade yet but very happy with the platform. i have some questions though:
i only trade USD stocks and I chose USD as my base currencty but i deposited chf 6000 chf (im in switzerland). now my account automatically shows that money in USD but it keeps fluctuating. right now shows $7,534.69 but every min it can go a bit lower and higher which i assume is the chf-usd exchange rate fluctuations in real time. my question is, should i exchange chf to usd inside the app before placing my first trade or not? im also surprised that the transfer from my swiss bank to my ibkr account was so fast and there was no fee deducted even though IBKR is a US broker.
cash 7,535.52. Buying Power 30,138.75. i don't mean this negatively but i dont understand why my buying power is 4x my cash. i thought ibkr offers 2:1 marging which is basically 50%. based on that, i would assume that my buying power should be double my deposited cash, so it should be roughly $15,000. isn't it? but it's 4x instead. so, does this mean i could right now buy a stock with $30.138 ? could someone explain why my buying power is 4x my deposit instead of 2x.
i see that IBKR offers paid data subcription packages for USA stocks but i already use a separate paid tool for technical analysis i use stockcharts.com so i shouldn't pay for anything separately on IBKR, correct? basically i don't even need to do any analysis inside the IBKR interface since Im already used to using stockcharts and is good enough for me. so i just have to place trades directly on IBKR without worrying about their charts or trading platforms, correct?