Closing position on a currency bought

Investing / Funding & Currency conversions
1

Hey everyone,

I’ve bought ETFs a couple of times by converting the CHF I funded my account with into USD. I bought USD.CHF on forex (i think). Everything seems fine, but now if I look in my IBKR portfolio I see the VT I bought, the CHF I still have and USD.CHF. Next to the USD.CHF I see the “POSITION” column with the sum I converted. If I click through I have the option to “close position”. What does this mean?

PS. I’m using the android app of IBKR
PPS. Does anyone have any tutorial (either text or video) where these notions are explained? Such as P&L or Open/Closed positions. There are many things I don’t understand in the interface and that makes me a bit scared considering I’m moving money in there.

Thanks!

2

When buying ETFs, do not convert the currencies first, otherwise you will have a IDEALPRO forex position, which is annoying but not dramatic or bad in any way.

Unfortunately I havent found out how to manage currencies in the app. I use Trader Workstation on the desktop to manage my currencies.

I buy securities directly in the app (resulting in a negative USD balance) then once a month I go into TW -> Account Window -> Close all non base currencies and close my negative USD balance.

3

See also this thread

4

Okay, good to know it’s not a problem :slight_smile: was a tad worried about it
I found a button in the Android app where o could hide the FX positions

5

About the terminology. Where did you learn about Positions, P&L and such stuff?

6

This requires a margin account correct?
If I only have a cash account I will have to buy USD? btw FXCONV seems to be gone from IB, I can only exchange via IDEALPRO?

7

FXCONV is still available via the Account Window. Or at least this method does not open virtual currency positions.

I have a margin account

8

I’m having the same problems as Azreal, but with a cash account.
I first sold 2000 CHF to convert to USD (USD.CHF), and later I bought USD with 8’000 CHF (CHF.USD). Now, I have 2k in USD.CHF, and -8k in CHF.USD.

I used the money to buy VTI, VEA and VWO.
I’m also worried about the -8k in CHF and 2k in USD, because I only have 4USD in cash and 17 CHF in cash left. All other USD were used to buy ETFs.

As far as I understood, with the cash account it shouldn’t be possible to create negative balances. I don’t want to pay any interest because of this.
The overall account amount is 10k, which is what I had transferred.

Any ideas on this one?

9

Sometimes reading before typing is the better choice…
Seems that it’s just a virtual position, as explained in the link from oozoo.
Did not yet find the button on how to get rid of those positions, but I’ll continue searching.

10

Last time we discussed the topic it was only possible using the Java app.
Don’t know if now it can also be done through the Web interface or the mobile app.

11

Found the option in TWS. Seems it’s really only possible to adjust there.

12

You can also “hide” it in the mobile app; although it applies only to that view, doesn’t remove it entirely from the system.
When looking at your Portfolio, tap the top 3-dot menu, and uncheck “Enable FX Portfolio”.