Interactive Brokers Set Up

[steven01]

Hi everyone, a newbie IB question, in process of setting up Individual account to trade Chartist US PS. I have submitted on application form to have a cash account and BPay and to deposit initial $20k. Does this mean whenever a US stock is bought and sold it is transacted within their account I sent the $20k to and they convert to US$ and I can keep track of transactions thru the account management section. Also, if I wanted to sell out completely and return all my money back to my own account is it a matter of just giving them my account details? I presume this is how it works. If anyone could offer some clarification that would be great, thanks.

 

[lenny]

Re: IB Set up

Hi Steve

Assuming your base currency is in AUD, to trade US stocks with a CA you will need to convert the amount you want to trade from AUD to USD and wait T+2 to trade.

If you want to transfer money from your IB account back to your bank account I think you get one free transfer a month and after that I think your charged per transaction.

 

[steven01]

Hi, when and how do I convert from Aus $ to US $. If the $$ are in their account just sitting there why does it take T plus 2? I thought they convert themselves? Thanks for any help.

 

[lenny]

Hi, when and how do I convert from Aus $ to US $. If the $$ are in their account just sitting there why does it take T plus 2? I thought they convert themselves? Thanks for any help.

When converting your currency from AUD to USD it is essentially a forex trade, and with a CA settlement times apply i.e T+2 forex & T+3 stock ect.

With the CA you will need to have the correct available cleared funds and it must also be in the correct currency to be able to trade.

I think there's multiply ways of converting currency in IB but by typing aud.usd into the contract field of tws, right click sell is one method.

When the trade is filled you should see it appear in the portfolio tab as well as the account tab under real fx balance.

It might pay to setup a paper trader account so you can have a play before going live.

Are you trading the systematic power setups or the discretionary?

 

[steven01]

Hi Lenny, thanks for your assistance. I will be trading the Discretionary rather than the Systematic as the former from what I can tell has less signals for me to act on. For this reason I am also trading the Growth Portfolio within my SMSF (just in process of setting up CMC account). What about you?

 

[lenny]

I'm trading the US HFT portfolio and will be looking at trading ASX portfolio down the track to diversify.

Best of luck.