NickU

@peterBThis is not how I understood the process works, is this for definite or are you making an assumption? I have to communicate with DAS across the Atlantic to see the charts and other information that DAS is providing. But to actually place the order, my understanding is that DAS has to tell the broker and the broker places the order with the exchange. At the very least DAS needs to handshake with the broker to ensure I have the necessary funding in my account and approval to place the order. Thus if the broker is back in UK, there is a 3 x Atlantic crossing communication path involved in placing an order. Does that have any significance to the time to actually place an order or is it all so fast it really doesn't matter? In one of the early BBT classes Andrew advise that a network delay of 200ms is the maximum acceptable, this is why I feel this is important. In the DAS Simulator I have a delay of around 110 ms, but it isn't actually placing the order on the NASDAQ exchange. The DAS simulator isn't talking with any broker and thus only one atlantic crossing is occuring. Unless, the simulator is linked to a BBT paper account with some broker - most likely IB US. But again, that would only be one Atlantic crossing.

@peterBThanks for the reply, can you clarify what broker you were using to do this. I read that you are based in Europe but were using IB UK and were able to convert a load of Euros into Dollars once only and they were held in that currency effectively permanently for all future trades? I assume since Brexit you were switched to one of the new European subsideries of IB - Luxemburg, Dublin or Budapest?

I'm about to set up a live account with IB, but would welcome some advice from people who live in the UK and have done this. There is a UK based subsidary of IB (Interactive Brokers UK), but I'm worried about how the exchange rate fees will be handled if I have an account in Pounds Sterling but am constantly converting to dollars for every trade. Basic question is - would I be better off setting up an account with the US based IB and transferring my funds in one hit to US dollars or use IB UK? I've been looking at their help pages but things are a bit vague, they mention a $2 fee per trade for automatic conversion on the fly or a manual conversion with an unspecified fee, setup prior to initiating a trade, but I'm not sure if I can convert $25000 and keep it permanently in that currency for multiple future trades over several weeks/months or if it is a daily/single trade thing? Finally of course I'm not certain whether there are hidden fees embedded in the actual exchange rate they use ie Buy at $1.40 sell at $1.20 A releated question - would trade order execution by significantly faster if I use IB US v IB UK to place orders on the US Stock markets? I would be using DAS who servers I believe are based in New York. Thus if I trade through IB UK, my route to order would be from my location in UK to the DAS Server, back to IB UK, back to NASDAQ to actually place the order. Crossing the Atlantic 3 times. Whereas if I used IB US, my route to order would only cross the Atlantic once. Or am I misunderstanding something?