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I received an email from IB yesterday night informing of amendments to their contract as per changes to Australian law.

Has anyone more knowledgeable than I read through the new contract? What has actually changed?
 
waterbottle said:
I received an email from IB yesterday night informing of amendments to their contract as per changes to Australian law.

Has anyone more knowledgeable than I read through the new contract? What has actually changed?
Click to expand...

Ridiculous amount of legalese in that report. No idea of the implications.
 
Gringotts Bank said:
Ridiculous amount of legalese in that report. No idea of the implications.
Click to expand...

Lots of stuff about IB being Custodian of the securities and the ability to assign sub and sub-sub custodians.

My non legal understanding of this is, you don't own the securities. IB owns them and they are "in street name" for you.
 
RazzaDazzla said:
Lots of stuff about IB being Custodian of the securities and the ability to assign sub and sub-sub custodians.

My non legal understanding of this is, you don't own the securities. IB owns them and they are "in street name" for you.
Click to expand...

cheers.

Since they are in contact with ASIC, we can assume that if they wanted to, margin accounts would have also been discussed. I assume therefore that Aussies will never have access to margin through a usual account.
 
hawamahal said:
Has anyone converted currency lately i.e. after the FOREX trading finished. How do I convert from AUD to USD. I bought some US shares couple of weeks back and the USD balance of my account became -ve and AUD balance of my account reduced.
Click to expand...

I've just run aground of this problem too. It seems that it's not possible to convert from AUD to USD (or any other currency anymore). I don't use FX as an investment in and of itself, but just as a means to do a conversion.
This doesn't mean that it's not possible to buy US stocks of course, it just means that you will enter a negative position on USD cash - which you noted. It's also annoying that you will be charged interest on this negative amount whereas you wouldn't be if you were able to do the conversion.

I was a bit worried that my current USD holding (which I had before this silly rule came in) would be stuck as USD with no way to convert back. But seems that there is an option in account settings to convert non-AUD holdings to AUD home currency.

I'm hoping there can be some resolution to this too as I'm keen on US stocks bought in US currency.
 
The above seems wrong?

How can the AUD balance reduce AND the USD balance go negative - isn't this a double negative?
 
yada said:
But seems that there is an option in account settings to convert non-AUD holdings to AUD home currency.
Click to expand...

I convert USD back to AUD fine using the normal trading buttons, just can't see quotes and have to buy at market, which is fine, the spreads are like half a pip anyway.
 
Just a note on FX as it currently works now with IB.

1. You cannot do ANY direct fx trade within IB EXCEPT non-AUD currency -> AUD (anything else is blocked). Any non-AUD currency -> AUD conversion still works as normal.

2. You can "kinda" do a AUD -> non-AUD currency transfer by buying securities denominated in the non-AUD currency (choose something like a money market etf) then selling it. You get the non-AUD currency left over and you can convert back to AUD when you want or buy other securities denominated in that currency. This obviously incurs extra brokerage and the T+3 delay.

3. If you have both AUD and some non-AUD balances and then you buy a security denominated in a currency you do not yet own, you will incur a negative balance in that currency. IB will then automatically pay off that negative balance.... USING THE currency with the highest cash balance (in AUD terms) that you own ! So you do NOT get to control what fx use to pay off the negative balance with !

e.g. You own have 10k AUD cash and 20k USD cash and you buy a Eurostoxx 50 etf that is denominated in Euros, the negative euro balance will be paid off using your USD. The system automatically does this, you do NOT get to choose.

This surprised the **** out of me as I was expecting my AUD to be deducted (i had enough in Aud to cover the negative eur balance) but the system choose to deduct my HKD instead.

Just a heads up.
 
Is it still not possible to place MOC and MOO through IB on the ASX markets?

Such a handy feature elsewhere.
 
chops_a_must said:
Is it still not possible to place MOC and MOO through IB on the ASX markets?

Such a handy feature elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Both MOO and MOC can be emulated. Not perfect but works well generally.
For MOO - send an aggressive order before the open
For MOC - send an aggressive order with a start time after 4pm
 
You can also set conditional order with time condition to sent a market order. Why anyone wants to do this besides in the most liquid of markets is beyond me..but its available.
 
I'm trading Aussie shares

What's the best way to keep track of dividends for end of FY reporting?

Can I run a dividend report or something? does this show the franking % or do I need to look this up myself (on trading room or the asx website or something)
 

Yes, a report is made available after the end of the tax year that lists all dividends and franking credits received.

This is the heading information of that report which shows you the information the report gives:

 
I use a company for trading US equities through IB and I have been asked to resubmit my tax information as required by the US government from time to time. Everything seemed OK until I was asked to enter the details on form W-8BWN-E in line 5 "Chapter 4 Status (FATCA status) (Must check one box only unless otherwise indicated). (See instructions for details and complete the certification below for the entity's applicable status)."

As far as I can tell from reading the instructions linked to from the form (I must admit I understand little of what is being asked, but in previous years this section didn't apply to my company), I should not need to tick any of the boxes as I am not a financial institution. However, when I submit the form it doesn't continue to the next part but returns to the form with the error "Required" listed against that section. I'm stuck and can't proceed beyond that point and can only Logout.

Has anyone encountered this issue recently (it's a new form, previously from memory it was W8BEN). If so how did you answer that section. I don't want to tick any box just to proceed as I don't know what the implications would be and might end up in more difficulty trying to subsequently correct if wrong.
 

This one... https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8bene.pdf

Yes I had the exact same question recently for my SMSF and my accountant replied:

We advise you to select 'Nonreporting IGA FFI' and you may confirm with Interactive Broker directly.

I just ticked that and forgot about it but received another request from IB on Friday to do the same for my company account. Will probably tick the same
 

Thanks, I'll try that.
 
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