Recent content by MrBean

What's Schiff position on the Euro and european stocks? Isn't Europe in the same boat as the US in terms of too much borrow and spend?

smilingsynic, you're my hero. Did any of your students or colleagues ever catch you looking at charts in your office? I once shared an office with a professor who received every a mysterious fax and then placed a trade with a brief phone call. Never told me what the system was but he said he...

is GM too big to fail too?

You need to decide the size of the positions you want to take, and the maximum drawdown in your time frame, and then find a contract that has sufficient volatility (not a problem right now) and sufficiently small tick size. Based on what you wrote I would try SPY. It trades in $80-$90 range...

Thanks. Sounds like a good deal if you are willing to hold to maturity. There is an EFP that gives 5.8% interest. Doesn't seem bad to me. You still have the currency risk if your base currency is not USD.

Kicking, do you mind elaborate a bit? True, the overnight interest rate on the euro is much higher. However IB doesn't give interest on the first 10k in cash. Since my cash is 15K in USD and the rest in EUR, I believe I'm not receiving interest on the first 10k USD (0.27%) and on the first 10k...

I just posted a new thread with the following question, sorry for the repeat: "I have a IB account in EUR denomination with a cash balance of 30K EUR plus 15K USD, which I use for day trading. I would like to sell EFP or buy T-bills for the entire cash balance to accrue interest while still...

I have a IB account in EUR denomination with a cash balance of 30K EUR plus 15K USD, which I use for day trading. I would like to sell EFP or buy T-bills for the entire cash balance to accrue interest while still retaining margin for daytrading. How do I hedge the currency risk involved in...

rayl, actually I'm not sure I understand. If I keep EUR base currency and convert all my cash into USD, then buy a US stock on margin, why is the margin requirement different than if I had USD as base currency? Can you give a numerical example? thanks

Thanks both of you for your input.

Thanks. Also, apart from the no-interest threshold, is there any reason for your suggestion to keep only one currency? What is not clear to me is how margin works for a mixed currency account. Say I have 25k USD and 20k EUR cash, and I buy a 50k USD contract. Is there any currency...

Thanks for the reply. Is there any smaller sized EUR futures? Or any other way to hedge the currency risk for a 50k account?

Hi all, I have an account in EUR denomination with IB and I want to daytrade US stocks and futures. Hope someone can answer my two simple questions: 1. Which of the options a,b below is the least expensive way to daytrade USD denominated instruments with a EUR account? a) convert a chunk...