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Sorry, I see that I wasn't clear. I meant the cash balance in the futures account. The cash in my IB futures account is less than the maintenance margin because my account includes long futures options. That cash is the part that's generating a negative spread. If IB worked like RJ Obrien...

Are you just determined to fight with people? I was pointing out that your post was helpful. The fact that it happens with larger sizes was additional info I thought was helpful too. Yes, I was trying to lift the entire ask size which was much more than $100k usd and didn't get filled.

I think they're related because both are about government securities used as collateral for other trades. My assumption that you don't trade futures is based on the fact that you don't seem to understand how futures margin works.

I do understand about the minimum quantities and see them at fidelity as well. However, I've never noticed a minimum quantity that's larger than the quoted bid or ask size. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for a quote system to show an ask size of 1mm with a minimum of 10mm. That's why I...

This is consistent with my experience trading treasuries at IB. I don't think it's limited to small orders or t-bills. I've found that I don't get an instant fill even if I try to lift the entire ask size. IB customer service is, of course, useless in explaining why I haven't been filled...

I reread your OP and see that you asked about using canadian bills for collateral for your unspecified trades at IB. Those of us who are interested in using governments (not just canadian) specifically for collateral for futures trades at IB have been having a valuable and IMHO on-topic...

Thanks for this info. After tradegoodstocks' post, I bought a t-bill for more than the cash balance in my IB futures account to test it myself. Without your post, I wouldn't have known where to look to verify it was working. I was expecting to see the cash get moved out of my futures account...

M.W. : You might want to unsubscribe from this thread if you're no longer interested in the topic.

Ok. Sounds good. It's pretty cheap for me to try it and see what happens. BTW, did you mean t-bills or all treasuries in your comment below? If it works w/ Tips, I would move some of TIP holdings elsewhere to IB.

I still don't know what one has to do to get the t-bills moved to the futures account. I assume it doesn't happen automatically? Did you buy the bills in the securities account and then request that they be moved? If so, how did you get the request elevated past the customer services reps who...

Could you supply a link to the boglehead forum where someone has actually done this or, even better, PM me the details. I've searched and all I've found is the equivalent of this thread: 1) ib reps pretending not to understand the question 2) people who have never actually done it, claiming...

Did you actually do a trade and verify that they were using t-bills for margin to replace cash held in the futures sub-account? They told me that they do not do this. Of course, it was difficult to extract this info since I had to wade through many verbose explanations of how they calculate...

Does anyone know of a source for option adjusted spread calculations on bonds, CDs and preferred stocks? It doesn't have to be free, but does need to be cheaper than getting a Bloomberg terminal.

I would be surprised if you could. A $1 million trade would probably be considered an odd-lot by most dealers.

Unfortunately, on web forums, there are always people who rush to "answer" questions but don't have any actual knowledge to offer. As Etiger might have already figured out, there's no such thing as "routing strategy" on a bond order at IB. Dicer's suggestions might be useful for a stock trade...

Yes, of course, I have tried again many times. I've now confirmed that I'm seeing actual trade-throughs. Multiple "last trade" prices that are higher than my asking price. It seems odd that this is allowed in any kind of electronic trading platform.

I place an order to sell some treasury bonds that I own at IB with an asking price approximately midpoint of the bid/ask spread. The IB asking price never changed to reflect my lower ask. My quantity was equal to the original ask quantity and 100x the lowest quoted quantity, so that wasn't the...

Surely you have some kind of description that offers more detail than you have provided so far? This is something that customers have good reason to want to understand. Normally, I can know that my well margined portfolio will still be well margined tomorrow morning, absent a large adverse...

Why is it so difficult to find out the actual test? For most of your calculations IB assume its customers are intelligent enought to understand formulas, but for this one we aren't? I was responding to your comment: How much?

Do you guys have a description somewhere of the test that you use to determine whether a portfolio is concentrated? I assume it's some kind of objective test, but i couldn't find a description on your website. Also, do you have a description of the adjustment to margin amount?