Tiger or ibkr

Hi Anon,

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For US markets, as Chris mentioned, it's definitely IBKR. The difference in commission fees is massive (0.35 USD VS 1.99 USD) that it's quite hard for Tiger to be cheaper.

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Regarding currency conversion, IBKR's competitive spread actually makes the fee worth it. Tiger's FX spread is about 0.3% on USD, which means on a conversion of $1k SGD, you lose $3. In comparison, IBKR's conversion fee is 2 USD (about 2.70 SGD, though I got charged 2.90 SGD just this morning). This means if you're converting $1k SGD or more, IBKR is going to be the better choice.

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In general, IBKR's fees are cheaper than Tiger's (except for SGX because Tiger is waiving minimum fees), but the difference for the rest of the markets isn't as big as for the US market, so there may not be so much difference.

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But in the long run, I believe IBKR is definitely the way to go.

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Hope this helps!

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Regards,

thefrugalstudent

IBKR for sure. At least for US markets. IBKR's US comms are USD0.35 minimum per trade, while Tiger's is USD1.99.

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Also for your comment on currency conversion, that's not entirely accurate since tiger charges you a spread meaning you lose about 0.3-0.5% on your FX conversion depending on which currency you're converting. That said, the spread might be smaller than the flat fee that IBKR charges if you transact in small amounts.

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Tiger I believe also has lower comms on SGX trading since they current don't charge the minimum fee so it's purely 0.08% + GST etc.

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Other downsides of IBKR is I guess their app UI really isn't the best so just prepare yourself. I think it's fine honestly but a lot of people have complained about it to me so that's probably who you should listen to hahaha.

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For me, I've used IBKR for about a year so I'm biased HAHA but I've never looked back.

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