Activate Plan B!
Next stock options expiration date: May 19th!
Or is it possible to execute calls if we are blocked from buying ETFs directly?
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Just make the 40 trades (above 200k) in a year and work one year in the financial sector - and you donât need the 500â000.
They probably refer to FinSA. Art. 4 describes client classes including the âRetailâ and âProfessionalâ clients. Art. 5 expands on opt-in/out for changing your class. According to art. 5 para. 1:
According to art. 5 para. 2:
Which also makes you eligible if you have CHF 2 million. But seems to indicate that IBKR is not in compliance because for letter a CHF 500â000 is required in any case.
I fear, theyâre referring to MiFID II, Annex II, client categorisation and opt-up possibility, unfortunately. The UK has onshored that legislatin. The Swiss rules you copied would have been significantly more user friendly.
Might depend on settlement: is it cash or physical?
Or maybe IBKR would only allow cash settlement to you?
Do you guys know if you can even sell US domiciled ETFs?
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Yes, Sell button is active.
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These are standardized instruments traded through a centralized exchange. And they are physically settled. IB canât affect their settlement. What they can do is prevent you from buying options. But it seems to be not the case. And it seems that EU investors are doing it already.
P.S. anyway someone should try it first 
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Before buying stock options, we should probably wait until this settles out and we get something a little more official from IB.
Stock options will be great for VT for some investors (definitely not everybody), but an ETF like VOO means investing about 40K at once which almost nobody can do.
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Is IB correct in saying that this is also a requirement for Swiss residents?
Can you still buy them today?
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Swiss residents are certainly not subject to MiFID regulations solely on the basis of being a Swiss resident. However, itâs conceivable that the MiFID regulations adopted by the UK apply to all customers of IB UK independent of their residence. I donât know whether IB UK is indeed required to do this by UK law or whether they simply treat Swiss residents the same as everyone else to keep it simple for them.
As of this morning Iâm also affected. Iâve requested a change in MiFID client categorization, as I believe I fulfill the requirements.
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I had all my open orders for VTI, VXUS and VT automatically cancelled this morning for the reason of âno trading permissionâ. Annoying.
You can try and request the trading permissions again in the mobile app. You then get different warning messages indicating why you cannot have certain permissions.
One of my warnings was that my liquid net worth had to be higher than my account equity. I have updated that setting now and will see what happens after it is changed.
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Has it finally happened?
Is it described what position? Is working in IT in a bank sufficient? 
Same here, had my VT order cancelled this morning⊠
Iâll give it a few days, but I donât expect our trading permissions will be returned unless one fits the criteria for a professional investor. I guess weâll have to revert to VWRL and the likes for future ordersâŠ
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Have you considered any âclient moneyâ implication, or has IB told you how they will handle your money? According to https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CASS/7.pdf as a professional investor your money is not segregated from the brokerâs money :
The firm = IB
(1) money will not be subject to the protections conferred by the client
money rules;
(2) as a consequence, this money will not be segregated from the money
of the firm in accordance with the client money rules and will be used
by the firm in the course of its own business; and
(3) the professional client will rank only as a general creditor of the firm.
I wouldnât want to make the change to save a few hundred per year at risk of losing several thousands in 20 years. At the same time, it is IB choice of whether to consider your money âclient moneyâ or not, so it would be interesting to learn how they handle it.
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No position description, but in my experience they are pretty nasty when it comes to evaluating requirements.
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IB UK does not indicate such a change in their professional client notification, which they would be required to, according to CASS, as I understand it. So I assume there is no change.
Also, âclient moneyâ in CASS only refers to cash, right? I donât hold much cash at IBKR anyway and I would expect the SIPC protection up to USD 250k to apply independent of the MiFID client category.
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I think it only refers to cash. SIPC generically refers to âbrokerâs customersâ, I couldnât find anything on their web site mentioning that âprofessionalsâ clients are not protected. 