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Quarterly enhancements to our trading platform along with expanded product offerings result in more unique advantages for IB customers. We've highlighted several of our recent developments below, and invite you to visit us at www.interactivebrokers.com to learn more. |
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IBLLC Receives S&P A- Rating
Considering the current economic climate, we are especially proud to announce that IB LLC was recently awarded a stand-alone rating of "A-/A-2; Outlook Stable" by Standard and Poor's, based on its solid financial profile. Parent company IBG LLC currently has an S&P counterparty credit rating of BBB+.
For details, see the S&P Ratings  page.
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US Corporate Bonds
In our ongoing mission to provide liquidity on better terms through the use of technology, we have significantly enhanced support for electronic US Corporate Bonds trading. In contrast to traditional bond brokers, our platform allows you to see and place bid and offer quotes for US Corporate Bonds. We have also redesigned our Corporate Bonds scanner to provide bond-relevant custom search filters and criteria. Customers can submit a Request for Quote on any corporate bond using the right-click menu from a bond data line. With smart routing destinations Knight BondPoint, Tradeweb and Bond Desk, we believe Interactive Brokers is the premier destination for the electronic trading of US Corporate Bonds.
Traditionally bond quotes on Wall Street have been a highly guarded secret. We aim to break that tradition by displaying continuous quotes on several thousand bonds throughout the trading day. Our customers do not need to hit the bids or take the offers they see. We would like to encourage you to make your own bids and offers on our platform.
In addition, TWS now supports trading of US municipal bonds via a fully-electronic system with feeds from Municenter, Tradeweb and Knight BondPoint. Note that you must upgrade your Fixed Income trading permissions and subscribe to Moody's Ratings in Account Management before you can trade bonds.
For more information on trading bonds in TWS, see the TWS Users' Guide.
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IRA Conversions & Recharacterizations
You can now convert your IB Traditional, Rollover or SEP IRA to a Roth IRA with our new IRA Conversion feature. You can also undo or "recharacterize" a conversion by returning the converted amounts (and any earnings) back to the IRA, and "reconvert" back to a Roth IRA at a later date, provided you meet IRS requirements. Interactive Brokers recommends that you consult with your tax advisor before performing any actions that may affect your individual tax situation. All conversions and recharacterizations are performed through Account Management.
For more information on these features, see the appropriate sections on IRA Conversions and Recharacterizations in the Account Management Users' Guide.
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TWS Integrates the Wall Street Horizon Events Calendar
We are pleased to announce the integration of subscription-based Wall Street Horizon Earnings and Events Calendars into TWS. This accurate, comprehensive and global information allows you to see and bookmark upcoming corporate events such as earnings, dividend and stock split announcements, investor conference calls, shareholder meetings and more, for companies you have in your portfolio or are interested in following. For even more insight, you can see a list of events for related companies that share the same sector as the company you're following.
Subscribe to Wall Street Horizon from the Market Data Subscriptions page in the Trading Access menu of Account Management. For more information on Wall Street Horizon Events Calendars, see the TWS Users' Guide.
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Newly Designed IB WebTrader
We are in the process of reworking our HTML-based trading platform, the WebTrader. WebTrader is a scaled-down version of TWS with a simplified interface that may better serve new customers, or those who trade a single instrument and/or use more basic order types. The latest version of WebTrader includes a more intuitive layout with helpful icons, better design and a new set of light and dark "skins" that can be customized based on user preference.
Continue to check the WebTrader Release Notes for our ongoing upgrades.
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Single Username to Access Multiple Accounts
Single account and Single IRA account users can use the new Create Additional Account feature to create any number of new Single and Single IRA accounts that are automatically linked to the original account. Create Additional Account is initiated in the Account Administration menu in Account Management requires the completion of an abbreviated account application. You can access all linked accounts in Account Management, Trader Workstation, WebTrader, MobileTrader and iTWS with a single user name.
For more information, see the Account Management Users' Guide
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PortfolioAnalyst Offers Detailed Report
We continue to focus on adding new functionality and reports to the PortfolioAnalyst, our online reporting tool that allows investors to evaluate the performance of their IB portfolio against industry benchmarks. Recent enhancements include:
- Availability of the Overview, Asset Allocation and Benchmark Comparison reports in both HTML and PDF format.
- Release of the Comprehensive Snapshot PDF, which provides a one-page summary comprising Return over Time, key statistics such as best and worst returns, Net Asset Value, Beginning and Ending Asset Allocation, and Distribution of Returns. Choose to view the snapshot as either a 30-day or 12-month summary.
- Direct access to PortfolioAnalyst from the TWS View menu.
For information on using the Portfolio Analyst, see the Account Management Users' Guide
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New ETFs Daily Brief
We have recently added the ETFs brief to our popular suite of IB Market Briefs, which includes the Options, FX, and Interest Rate briefs. The ETFs table summarizes options activity on 11 major industries using the popular underlying SPDR Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). The data table shows the price and daily change in price as well as a reading of options implied volatility used to measure the potential price movement in the underlying symbol. The table also provides overall options open interest in each fund and breaks it conveniently into call/put and put/call ratios to help gauge investors' bias via the options market. Investors can monitor activity in today's trading by referring to the current options volume broken out by ticker.
Find the ETFs and other daily market briefs on the Education menu.
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IB Shakes Up Wall Street's Margin Lending Business
According to an April 24th Barron's article entitled "Living on the Margin, at a Discount," Interactive Brokers is shaking up Wall Street's lucrative margin-lending business by offering much lower rates than conventional institutions.
Read Andrew Bary's article Living on the Margin, at a Discount, reprinted by Dow Jones Reprint Solutions.
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New Products and Exchanges
We are pleased to announce the following:
- A new mutual fund venue, RiverNorth Mutual Funds.
- Short Gilt and Medium Gilt on LIFFE.
- Lumber FOPs on CME (Electronic-Globex).
- Copper FOPs on NYMEX.
- Futures on Russell 1000 Growth Index (IND) on ICE/NYBOT.
- Futures on Malting Barley Index on MATIF.
To keep up-to-date on all of our recent product and exchange offerings, visit the New Products page on the Trading menu.
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Technology Updates
Efforts over the last quarter have resulted in many enhancements to our trading technology. We have already mentioned the addition of muni bonds and WSH Events Calendars. Other major feature enhancements are described below.
TWS
- The Yield Optimizer trading tool allows you to compare the borrow rates for hard-to-borrow stocks, borrow shares, lend out shares that you currently own, and find the best rate of return you could realize by investing unused cash in an EFP. For more information see the TWS Users' Guide.
- A new Options Strategy selection box allows users to have non-marketable Smart-routed options orders routed to the exchange offering the highest rebate.
- Market Scanners: A new set of scanner filters has been added to the filter criteria for US Corporate Bonds. These new fields provide more control for the scan results by allowing you to filter on market data, symbol, issuer, payment frequency, maturity date, industry, and much more.
- Customers now have access to most TWS Market Scanners (with the exception of EFPs) after trading has stopped, on evenings and weekends. After-hour scanners use data from the previous close to provide a static snapshot as of the market's close.
- ScaleTrader for pairs was significantly enhanced, making it easier to enter pairs and other combos.
- TWS now supports combos in user-specified ratios (e.g. 10:6) whereas previously we only handled native exchange ratios (5:3 for the previous example).
- Imbalance-only orders supported for US stocks.
TWS for BlackBerry®
- Support for Alerts and Market Scanners (for both customers and non-customers).
- The addition of the BookTrader trading tool for customers.
API Beta
- Exposes bond yields and provides more option analytics.
For a complete listing of all the latest TWS updates, see the TWS Release Notes.
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As our customers know, IB's TraderWorkstation TM is a comprehensive and versatile platform that lets you trade multiple products on numerous exchanges around the world from a single screen. The Traders' Edge focuses on one of our existing TWS tools that we think is worth a second look. This quarter we reintroduce you to the TWS Market Scanners.
The TWS Market Scanners allow you to quickly and easily scan global markets for the top performing contracts, including stocks, options, futures, US Corporate Bonds, indexes and more, in numerous categories. Customize your scan with any combination of user-specified search criteria such as instrument type, market center(s), price and volume constraints, sector and industry, and more. Our in-house market analysts use several of the TWS Market Scanners to develop the content and drive the data tables in their daily market commentaries.
We continually add to our scan offerings, and most recently have upgraded the US Corporate Bonds scan to include a comprehensive set of bond-specific criteria to help return the most useful listing of contracts based on your input. For an overview of the US Corporate Bonds scanner, see the TWS Users' Guide.
Choose from useful scan parameters
- TWS provides many of the most popular and useful scanners, including: High Dividend Yield, Top % Gainers and Losers, Most Active, Hot by Price and Volume, Top Trade Rate, Highest and Lowest Option Implied Volatility, 13-, 26- and 52-week High and Low, and many more.
Save your favorites
- You can create a custom scan that you check each day by simply leaving the defined scan parameters on a trading page, which is automatically named using the scanner title. You can create as many "scanner" trading pages as you need.
Run scans after market hours
- Use TWS Market Scanners (with the exception of EFP scanners) after trading has stopped on evenings and weekends. After-hour scanners use data from the previous close to provide a static snapshot as of the market's close, and after-hours scanners are identified by a gray background.
For more information on using TWS Market Scanners, see the TWS Users' Guide.
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Any trading symbols displayed are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to portray recommendations.
Options and Futures are not suitable for all investors. The amount you may lose may be greater than your initial investment. Before trading options read the “Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options”. Before trading futures, please read the CFTC Risk Disclosure. For a copy of either disclosure, call (203) 618-5800 or click here. Supporting documentation for any claims and statistical information will be provided upon request.
There is a substantial risk of loss in foreign exchange trading. The settlement date of foreign exchange trades can vary due to time zone differences and bank holidays. When trading across foreign exchange markets, this may necessitate borrowing funds to settle foreign exchange trades. The interest rate on borrowed funds must be considered when computing the cost of trades across multiple markets.
Interactive Brokers - 2 Pickwick Plaza - Greenwich CT 06830
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