Trading Overseas with IBKR

Study Notes:

In this lesson you will learn about some of the global venues and products available with your IBKR TWS account. We will also explain how to set up data feeds and request trading permissions.

During the account opening process clients submit information about their financial status, investment and product knowledge and trading history.

During the account approval process trading permissions may already have been approved.

However, let’s assume that a client wants to start trading in a market other than his own native market or one that requires use of currencies other than the account base currency. If a client is not permissioned for trading Warrants, he won’t be able to submit a trade. And if users don’t have live market data, they might be attempting to trade off old prices, which in itself carries risks.

On screen you can see quotes for instruments representing shares in Barclays Bank as an example. The company trades on several exchanges such as the LSE or London Stock Exchange, and EBS in Switzerland. It also has ADRs listed in New York and trades under a separate ticker in US dollars.

Because these shares are traded elsewhere and are priced in British pounds and Swiss francs, some investors might want to trade these with a specific purpose in mind to reflect a potential view on the currency returns as well as those on the stock.

Let’s assume that when an investor opened his US dollar denominated account, he only expected to trade US stocks. After becoming more interested in fixed income and currency markets, he decides that he’d like to invest overseas. If he loads the same tickers displayed on screen he might run in to two issues. One, if he attempts to submit a trade he will get an error message including information on how to apply for the appropriate trade permission. Two, he probably won’t see live market data. Note that
next to these prices is a small yellow triangle. If I hover above it you can see a warning about this being delayed data.

To request additional trading permissions or to subscribe to additional market data go to Account Management and make those changes.

Here are a few items to remember.

• Trading permissions are based upon information you provide to Interactive Brokers during your application process.
• If you do not have either sufficient experience or net liquidity, you may not be able to trade certain products.
• Remember, some investing is for sophisticated traders only.
• You may qualify to buy equity options, but you may not be granted permission to sell naked options. And SEC regulations stipulate that US investors may only trade options in the United States.
• During the trading permission process, denials will be explained on screen.
• If your circumstances have changed, you should make updates to your profile in Account Management.
• For example, you may have been trading through IBKR for several years, but as you opened your account, you may have claimed a smaller number of years trading experience.
• Or your income or financial worth may have changed over time. Such factors could be the difference between being approved or not for trading permissions.

Trading permissions are generally granted by asset class.

• And so if you have been approved for stock trading in the US but now want to trade in Europe, that permission will be granted in real-time.
• However, if you request permission for trading a separate asset class, such as fixed income, that request must be reviewed at Interactive Brokers. Such requests generally take 24 hours to process.
• Likewise, market data subscriptions are updated in real-time.

For additional information on restrictions impacted by factors such as residency, check the footnotes on the Product Listings page of the IBKR website.

You may access Account Management via any page on the IBKR website. When successfully logged in, click on the Settings menu to the left. Here you will see existing Profile, Financial Information and Trading Permissions. In the upper right of each window is a configuration icon.

• Let’s start in the Financial Information window by clicking that Configuration icon.
• Some of the Investment Objectives and Intended Purposes of Trading may support or preclude you from being approved for certain trading permissions.
• In addition, you may need to meet certain liquidity thresholds in order to qualify for trading futures.
• If you make any changes from the dropdown menus or alter any financial information, it will be submitted when you click on the blue Continue button at the bottom of the page.
• To return to the Profile pages without saving any changes, click on the Account Settings button to the left. Next, let’s look at Trading Permissions and click that Configuration wheel.

You can see what regional permissions I have for any specific asset class below. The display can be changed from Stocks to Bonds, for example, by clicking on the central dropdown menu and selecting another Asset class.

If I select Stocks, I can review the countries where I currently have permissions. These are displayed in Blue Font with a check next to the country. For the earlier example, I wanted to trade in the UK and Switzerland. Select by clicking the box displayed. If you don’t see the country where you wish to trade, access the All Regions dropdown box and locate those countries.

Next, I will change the asset selection menu to Cash Forex. Now the display has a box for Global. Click
here to select and you can click Continue to the lower right to submit changes for both Stocks and Forex.
Follow the on-screen instructions to submit your trading permission request.

Now let’s look at Market Data.

• To review your existing Market Data Subscriptions, click on the Settings menu and select User Settings.
• On the lower right of the screen you will see the Trading Platform area containing Market Data and research subscriptions.
• Click the Configuration wheel to the right.
• The display shows current free subscriptions plus those to which you may already have subscribed.
• There are two Configuration wheels within this section.
• On the right, you can change the Subscriber Status depending on what type of investor you are. This account is set to Non-Professional status.
• Let’s configure the Current Subscriptions area.

The on-screen display allows users to choose a geographic area and then review data feeds by Quote Bundles, Levels I and II, Indexes, Fixed income and Other. Click the Information icon to the right of any line to see detailed descriptions for each subscription. Check the required boxes to the left of the data feed you want and scroll to the bottom of the page and click the blue Continue button. Market data is activated in real-time.

If you know the product and exchange you want data from, but don’t know which feed, consider using the Market Data Assistant under the Support menu on the left. Click the Market Data Assistant button. On the next screen, complete as much information as you can. For example, I would like to know the potential cost of subscribing to a feed containing a quote for shares of Barclays Bank on the London Stock Exchange, but as a Non-Professional investor.

Enter the Ticker. When I start to enter LSE in to the Exchange input field, the picker returns available exchanges for selection. On the Optional Filters line click the Choose type dropdown. Here I can select Non-Pro. Under the Asset selector I will refine my choice to stocks and hit the Search button.

On the Search results display below, confirm that you entered the correct ticker symbol information and review the details and associated fees. The Market Data Assistant informs users of a choice of available market data. If you want to subscribe to a specific feed, remember to access User Settings from the Settings menu on the left of the page.