Brokers And Service Providers | Brokers - Trading Within The Spread

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8th Jan by JOHN O

8 comments 218 reads

I recently started using Interactive brokers and have encountered some difficulties when attempting to trade within the spread.

Previously I was with Barclays who have a quote and deal system, giving you a fixed price for 15 seconds. Frequently this results in an improved price. Unfortunately I had to move away from Barclays.

IB however seems to have Limit or market orders only. If I place an order below the ask price , it just doesn't go through.

I have a relative using Barclays , he was able to buy a share at a price I was not able to.

Anyone have any suggestions or advise they can offer ?

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About the Author

JOHN O

Premium Member

8 comments

Rusty2

8th Jan

Use a different broker?

l gather Interactive Brokers (NSQ:IBKR) don't trade many AIM stocks.

Are these AIM stocks?

JOHN O

8th Jan

some might be.

So which brokers offer the quote and deal service ?

Rusty2

8th Jan

Do you mean live dealing prices? Many. IG group (LON:IGG) and Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL.) do, both l use.
Believe ii and AJBell also do but have not used them.

They do not on US stocks. But they do on AIM shares.

sharw

8th Jan

We had a similar thing on Monday here when I was confused by there being Interactive Brokers, based in the USA and Interactive Investor based in the UK. I have a/cs with ii, xo and iWeb and all give a price within the quote on most occasions and particularly for smaller stocks with a wide official spread.

So assuming that you are with the USA Interactive I would suggest you look around standard UK brokers.

JOHN O

9th Jan

IBKR do now have a UK website aimed at UK investors. However From my experience they would be better suited to ETFs and large cap stocks with a small spread.

I didn't realize "live dealing prices" is the terminology. I guess that's what I looking for.

My problem is I moved out of UK for a while, and having an account with most UK banks or brokers has become difficult. Barclays have just shut peoples accounts down if they move abroad. Which seems pretty outrageous to me considering you might be working temporarily overseas.

HSBC expat also offers a share dealing service with invest direct. But I struggle to be too complimentary about that. There's a £10k limit on your account. And if you want to increase it, you have to make an appointment with a personal banker, and they are usually booked up for at least 2 weeks !

The other thing I don't like is they offer very little interest on cash balances. In the past I got round this by buying a money market ETF with any spare cash. However HSBC isn't a whole of market provider and those ETFs are not available !

Sorry this is beginning to sound like a rant...

GavSmith01

9th Jan

IBKR don’t have access to the UK RSP network, as far as I’m aware. They’re great if you want to leave limit orders on the book as they offer DMA. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then they’re not the broker for you!

WarrantStar

9th Jan

Hi JOHN O. It looks like your choice of broker will depend on whether or not you will be UK based or not. If you are UK based then Interactive Investor provides live dealing prices, which are sometimes within the spread. They also offer interest on cash balances. But this information will be of no use if they will not accept you as a customer. Try some Google searches along the lines of "UK equites accounts with live dealing prices, for expats" (or whatever term correctly defines your status).

JOHN O

9th Jan

DMA I assume stands for direct market access. Not familiar with RSP, perhaps you could enlighten me ?

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JOHN O

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