Recent content by JackR

Guess it's time for new glasses. Jack

Samovar: Because IB has many many changes between July 2009 when I made the post and August 2016. Jack

I beta-tested MT and unless they have changed it in the production version you can use any .wav file you wish. Do a search for .wav files on your machine. Then change to that file's location from the defaults MT provides. Jack

Looks like Medved Trader (MT) has replaced QT. It is a bit pricier than the old QT. You can get a one month free trial (full featured) at https://www.medvedtrader.com/www/frontend Looks like Jerry will also offer a limited capability free version as well. Looks pretty interesting. So I...

Energy: The advisory says "accounts that are margin compliant in all respects, with the exception of the increased requirement, would be permitted to hold existing positions.". I think maintenance margins on positions in place prior to April 15th are "grandfathered", not positions opened after...

Trader13: The IB email said that they messed up and were restoring the capability to existing accounts. My guess is that new IRA accounts are not getting futures authorized and will not be offered futures trading capability until the new high margin policy is in place. So if I were IB I'd put...

Shorting requires borrowing a stock . This requires margin. Margin is a loan. Loans are not allowed in an IRA-type account. Selling or buying a futures contract does not involve borrowing, you have a contract to buy or sell something. Technically futures do not use margin. They require a...

J.P. Well it took place in 2005. I was off a bit, The owner had an IRA and a regular account. IB covered the debit from his regular account. In looking at the thread I see IB also fixed the options exercise problem - they will not exercise an ITM option if it will put the IRA account into...

J.P. I don't know. Maybe it's harder to collect. Or perhaps someone noticed some IRA's in the other 20% of the CHF big losers and wondered about IB's risk, resulting in a very precipitous, not thought out, decision to "fix it right away".. Obviously, after due consideration, they are...

Robert: There are a few programs around that use the SSD's (or HD's) embedded serial number to control program use. So you may have to reinstall (or re-register) those programs. Jack

Gary: Unless the link is wrong, the linked story says 80% of the loses came from five non-US accounts and doesn't mention IRAs at all. The non-US accounts couldn't be IRA accounts. A number of years ago there was a thread about exercising of some call options held in an IRA account. They...

It is reliably reported that "special margining" will be implemented for IRA accounts. What that means is still being worked. Implementation date is unknown. Probably depends on the programmers. Possible message from management today. Jack

The problem with all these informal/back channel communications is they are not definitive. I've got my permissions back, but will they disappear without warning again? IB needs to get something official out. They probably have a bunch of lawyers who have to approve such a statement - but a...

vette: Mine also. Hopefully they will tell us why! Jack

Since IB has not officially written anything about this, other than their web page change showing IRAs cannot trade futures, perhaps there is high level discussion taking place about making it permanent, or restoring with new safeguards. I certainly hope they will publish something explaining...