“Yeah yeah, I know… still, we gotta meet up for an hour at my place and you gotta show me how you use the Interactive Brokers app in detail.”
Over the last 6 months, this was the third time in a row that my mate Mathew had said this to me over a nice raclette with friends.
He had created his Interactive Brokers Switzerland (*) account last year, but still hadn’t transferred a dime or bought any ETFs there.
The interface of the Interactive Brokers mobile app called “IBKR Mobile” scared him off.
Upon hearing again that nothing has changed, I said to him: But haven’t you tried the Interactive Brokers GlobalTrader app?"
I was kidding, but I actually had only discovered it a few days before when I was looking for some other info on the Interactve Brokers website 😅
I carried on:
Basically, it contains the same features one needs as a Swiss Mustachian investor, but it is much easier to use!
IBKR GlobalTrader: Interactive Brokers’ simple and easy-to-use mobile app
The IBKR GlobalTrader mobile app has been designed for beginner and intermediate clients of Interactive Brokers. Unlike the IBKR Mobile app and its many advanced features, IBKR GlobalTrader focuses on buying and selling global stocks and ETFs. Currency conversion is also much easier!
Just like I did with my friend Mathew, I’m going to show you the features of IBKR GlobalTrader that every Mustachian needs to invest in the Swiss stock market.
How to check your balance in Interactive Brokers
You can check how much money you have in your trading account in real time (i.e. the value of all your shares + your cash) directly when you open your IBKR GlobalTrader mobile app.
Below you can see the value in CHF and the change in value of your portfolio in the last 7 days in percent.
How to change currencies in Interactive Brokers
One of the many things that “shocked” me was how easy it was to change currencies on IBKR GlobalTrader, when you compare it to what you had to do before…
Before (in 2017)
This is what it looked like (if you want to laugh at the 147 steps in total, check out this article):
Today (in 2023)
And this is how it’s done today on the Interactive Brokers IBKR GlobalTrader app:
And that’s it! It’s so much more user friendly!!
How to buy the Global VT ETF via IBKR GlobalTrader
Same thing when you want to buy our favourite VT ETF, just press the “Trade” button and follow the steps below:
How to deposit money on Interactive Brokers Switzerland
Depositing money into your IB trading account is just as easy and straightforward as anything else on this platform.
The feature is accessible from the home screen:
Step 2: Select the Swiss bank account from which you want to fund your Swiss Interactive Brokers account
Then as per usual, you then click on “Get Transfer Instructions” to get the Swiss Interactive Brokers IBAN to send your money to.
Other cool features on the IBKR GlobalTrader app
Below are the other features of IBKR GlobalTrader that I find useful from time to time:
Nr. 1 - Trade history (orders, trades, transfers)
Nr. 2 - Portfolio view
Nr. 3 - Account Summary
Summary of your Interactive Brokers account, including your total assets, total balance, and your unrealized P&L to see how much you've made or lost since you started investing
Nr. 4 - News related to the stocks in your possession
For a long time I’ve been wondering where to follow world economic news quickly and efficiently.
I wanted something fairly simple, with a macro view where I could just see if there was any big news, like a stock market crash.
I certainly didn’t want to spend 30 minutes a day on that.
IBKR GlobalTrader has this news function in the mobile app where you only see news related to your stock portfolio (including my favourite ETF VT).
So obviously it’s noisy, but the advantage is that you’ll quickly see what’s most critical highlighted in the top banner:
Why does Interactive Brokers offer two mobile apps, IBKR Global Trader and IBKR Mobile?!
While chatting with Mathew, we wondered why Interactive Brokers was offering two apps rather than one.
So I asked my Interactive Brokers representative and here is his answer:
IBKR GlobalTrader is designed to be simple and easy to use. The app dispenses many of the features of IBKR Mobile which makes it more enjoyable for users. The primary focus is also on international stock trading
GlobalTrader’s target audience is different from that of IBKR Mobile. GlobalTrader is simpler, so it’s aimed more at beginner or intermediate users who want to get into stock market investing and trading.
I suggest you refer to these tables for a comparison of experience level and features per platform:
IBKR Global Trader or IBKR Mobile: Comparison
Below I have highlighted the Interactive Brokers features that are not present in the IBKR GlobalTrader mobile app in red for you whereas they are in the IBKR Mobile app:
In short: there is nothing important missing from the IBKR GlobalTrader Interactive Brokers mobile app for an investor with a passive ETF investment strategy.
My buddy Mathew was telling me that it was a shame that bonds were not supported on GlobalTrader. But as I explained to him, you can buy bond ETFs and they are considered as stocks. As with stocks, we don’t want to go through the hassle of choosing one bond at a time for our Bogleheads portfolio.
The only feature that is not in the IBKR GlobalTrader app is “SmartRouting”. SmartRouting is an algorithm “made by Interactive Brokers” to ultra-precisely optimize the purchase of stocks in order to pay the lowest possible fees. In my opinion, this feature is cool, but not very useful for ETF investors like us. It can be useful for value investors where the fluctuations on a single stock can vary rapidly and you want your order to be processed as quickly as possible.
MP’s choice between IBKR GlobalTrader and IBKR Mobile
Interactive Brokers’ new GlobalTrader mobile app is superb. It’s so simple to use. I especially like the shortcuts available on the homescreen. The same goes for the news related to my portfolio.
But, I’ve gotten pretty used to IBKR Mobile by now.
So I decided to keep both Interactive Brokers apps on my phone. Because I still buy and sell value stocks using the Daubasses process.
Ultimately I find myself using both apps. But most of the time I use each one for specific reasons:
IBKR GlobalTrader
- Weekly checkup of my portfolio (P&L)
- Monitoring my margin level
- Change currencies — oh my god it’s so much better on IBKR GlobalTrader!!!
- Reading the news related to my investment portfolio
- Depositing and withdrawing money, as it is much easier and accessible from the home screen
- Buying ETFs because access from the IBKR GlobalTrader interface is much faster too
IBKR Mobile
- Buying and selling my value stocks while using the Interactive Brokers SmartRouting algorithm in order to place my order the fastest and at the best price.
Interactive Brokers Switzerland, what’s that?
A quick reminder for newcomers of the blog: Interactive Brokers is the best 2023 online broker for any self-respecting Swiss Mustachian investor.
It’s the cheapest Swiss online broker based on a company that has been around since 1978.
And the founder is still the CEO of the company.
You can read my Interactive Brokers Switzerland comprehensive guide in detail.
And what do you think about the IBKR GlobalTrader mobile app?
What about you? Do you use IBKR GlobalTrader to manage your investments placed on Interactive Brokers Switzerland?
(*) This symbol indicates whereever my article contains affiliate links. If you click on one or more of them, you won’t see any difference compared to the standard link - but the blog will receive an affiliate commission. Thank you for supporting the blog. As usual, I only write about and review products that I use in my daily life, or that I trust
