Interactive Brokers Q&A [2023]

This should be the fee, correct?

I’ve read somewhere it takes days. I wouldn’t be that worried once you know the costs. You are not out of the market so as long as you don’t want to sell them asap, it’s not a big deal.

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Yes makes sense, thanks!

I managed to transfer shares traded on LSE from my UK based broker to IB UK Ltd. Neither charged any fees.

On the other hand I attempted a transfer of a mutual fund which did not work. I had to sell and re-purchase.

Your situation with a Swiss broker is obviously different. At least you have one partial success story as motivation

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Cool, cheers, I’ll try and see :smile:

Do they have the FINMA protection of 100K CHF? or any other protection for EU residents living in Switzerland?

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Not protected by FINMA but, as I understand it, the main customer assets are held by IB LLC in the US where they are protected by SIPC (up to USD 500k total asset protection, cash protection limited to USD 250k). Some customer assets may be held by IB UK where they are protected by FSCS (up to GBP 85k).

Also, if you don’t borrow any money (margin) or stocks, all customer assets are segregated.

https://ibkr.info/node/2012

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This may have been asked before: Is there any advantage / disadvantage to using split spread orders as opposed to limit orders?

IBKR has promoted split spread orders recently.

Doesn’t it automate what you’d typically do with a limit order? I was doing a split spread limit order in the first place, this makes it simpler.

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Hi All. This is great forum. Just testing out IBKR.

The opening process was pretty painless, just that it wasnt clear that it takes (in my case) 24 hours after the account is funded and approved to be able to access “trade”.

Today I played around with routing a couple of '000s money :

  • CHF from UBS arrived by lunch and were immediately available within a couple of hours, and presumably can be converted to USD for $2
  • USD from (Swiss) Revolut arrived this afternoon but is showing hold and apparently wont be available until next Monday
  • Meanwhile Revolut transfers back to UBS were both very quick, the GBP one cost 0.0135% fee as not my base currency, and the CHF one was free. Lesson learnt… dont bother sending money from Revolut to IBKR
  • At the moment IKBR is quoting about 0.50% better CHF->USD rate too before costs anyway (see update on actual trade below)
  • But I’ll continue to use Revolut to ship back GBP rental income way more cheaply than HSBC UK account international transfers.

All this just really confirms the comments around this site, but I thought I’d share. It’s worth working out your best funds routing if like many of us you have accounts here and there for various reasons. D

Update: I actually swapped 1000 CHF for USD and got 1065-2=1063 on IBKR and would have have got 1063 without fee on Revolut, so the actual delta was about 0.2% on the spread, so IBKR is cheaper on any amount above that.

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Did anyone manage to add SARON to an IBKR watchlist… the symbol is recognized but it wont add. I could add SMI etc with no problem. No biggie, just thought it would be nice to have there. Thxs.

Is there a way to hide/blur the net liquidation value (NLV) when logging in to do a trade?

Thanks for any help. :slight_smile:

Hi,

Is anyone else seeing small monthly amounts of interests flowing into their CHF cash account on IBKR since 2023? For example I just received for March 1.11 CHF with title “CHF Credit Interest for Feb-2023”? So I was wondering I am receiving interests for the little money I have on my CHF IBKR account? It is surprising because I usually have around 2-3 CHF on it. Then I have on average around 70-90 USD on my IBKR USD cash account. So maybe that interests are on the USD account or both?

And I guess these interests is something I also have to declare in my yearly taxes exactly like I would do for a Swiss bank account?

Cheers!

I guess you are depositing monthly some CHF funds and it stays there for few days (nights). This could be already enough to earn some interest.

Oh yes.

I see, that makes sense now. I just was under the impression that there was no interests for smaller amounts (under 100k).

It is 0.344% on everything above 10k now.

I wonder how do you easily see that. There isn’t an easy view to see what happens to your capital.

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I noticed these interests by checking the MTD activity report where there is a section regarding interests but yes there are no details about the rate for instance, just the amount of interest.

I recently received a message that the client agreement is revised. The new version will replace the current one on 3 April 2023. Did somebody have a look at the changes?

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Following parts changed:

List of key changes to the Client Agreement

We have highlighted below the main changes to the agreement. The full text of the revised Client Agreement can be reviewed HERE.

  1. The full title of the Client Agreement will become “Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited and Interactive Brokers LLC Client Agreement”.
  2. The entire agreement has generally been restructured and reordered to allow for an easier read.
  3. Sections or subsections (indicated in parentheses) of the revised Client Agreement that are either new or have been substantively amended include, but are not limited to:
  • Cancelling this Agreement (A1.2)
  • Definitions and interpretation (A1.3, Appendix 1)
  • What are the risks (A1.6, Appendix 3)
  • Communicating with us (A1.8)
  • Use of Electronic Services (A1.9)
  • Costs and charges information (A2)
  • Your personal information (A3)
  • Responsibilities (A7)
  • Changing this Agreement (A10)
  • When things go wrong (A12)
  • Liquidation of Positions (A14)
  • Closing Rights Positions Prior to Expiration (A15)
  • Arbitration (A18, Appendix 5)
  • The services we provide you (B1)
  • Orders and confirmations (B3)
  • Commodity options and futures not settled in cash (B4.3)
  • Corporate actions (B4.4)
  • Universal Account (C1)
  • Worthless and Non-Transferable Securities (C6)
  • Unclaimed Property (C7)
  • Terms that apply to margin-enabled accounts (D1-D3, Appendix 4)

Sorry if asked before, I had a look and couldn’t find.
Is it possible and has anyone experience of transfer ETF positions from IKBR to a Swiss broker?