IB Advisor Friends & Family account

Quote from DAV:

Cluseau,
I have invited you via Pm to work through the allocation problem you posted with me as I am not able to reporduce it as described and if it exists we would like to correct it ASAP.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I answered your PM and am posting here in case you don't recieve it. I'm not interested in wasting my time fixing IB's TWS. You can however work on correcting account balances and fixing PnLs--they are always wrong. The other stuff i mentioned makes no difference to me as i am with a new broker now and will use IB as a questionable backup--that is, until account balances and all account information is correct for at least two days in a row. Good Luck to you and IB.
 
Quote from SideShowBob:

I had probably 15 profiles when they were wiped out. Basically I logged into TWS and turned on my trading system, but I didn't check if the profiles existed (and I didn't have any signals at the start of the day). I luckily noticed that my first trade at 11 AM was set to inactive (since the profile in my API order didn't exist anymore) and I had to manually recreate all the profiles.

It's not the actual number of profiles, but the space they take up. So two profiles with 15 accounts each could be too much....

I lost ALL my profiles, not just the oldest. I discovered that using the VB sample API application I can get the XML text for them and then save it to a text file for a quick restore if needed. I wish IB would document the limit or warn you -- I only heard about it when I opened a ticket and the guy researched it and told me that (I'm not even sure that was the reason -- it could just have been a glitch on their end).

Despite some issues, I've been very happy with my FA account. I now trade an LLC account for myself, plus 3 IRAs for me and my wife, plus IRAs for my parents, and also an account for my sister. The biggest issue is figuring out how many contracts to trade with each account, and it can be a problem that you can't leg into/out of positions with futures, but that's not a problem with IB, that's just an allocation problem you'd have with separate accounts too.

Note you can also create a second user account which you can use to log into TWS and monitor trades without booting out the main account (I use it at work to monitor my automated trading system).

Two other benefits -- the $30 threshold for paying for data is now across all accounts, not per account. Also LLC sub-accounts to not pay professional fees since the data are viewed by the non-pro FA master account.

SSB


Can you elaborate on the last sentence--about LLC sub-accounts not paying professional data fees. Are you saying that with an FA account you don't pay professional data fees, even though you have an LLC?
 
Can you elaborate on the last sentence--about LLC sub-accounts not paying professional data fees. Are you saying that with an FA account you don't pay professional data fees, even though you have an LLC?

If you are not a professional and you open an Advisor Account the Advisor account is responsible for the data fees. If you, as defined in the various NYSE, ASE, and NASDAQ data agreements, are not a professional, you pay only $20 per month or the non-professional fees for other data beyond the standard package. If a sub-account you advise is an LLC which would normally have to pay professional data fees the LLC does not have to pay them. Data is being supplied to you, the Advisor, not the LLC. None of your sub-accounts pay a data fee, only you, the Advisor do. If you use the standard data package and the sub-accounts generate an overall $30 in commissions then the advisor account is not billed as the fee is waived.

Consult your attorney or IB, I've been told that the exchanges can bill retroactively if you misstate your qualifications. Read the agreements carefully.

Jack
 
Quote from JackR:

If you are not a professional and you open an Advisor Account the Advisor account is responsible for the data fees. If you, as defined in the various NYSE, ASE, and NASDAQ data agreements, are not a professional, you pay only $20 per month or the non-professional fees for other data beyond the standard package. If a sub-account you advise is an LLC which would normally have to pay professional data fees the LLC does not have to pay them. Data is being supplied to you, the Advisor, not the LLC. None of your sub-accounts pay a data fee, only you, the Advisor do. If you use the standard data package and the sub-accounts generate an overall $30 in commissions then the advisor account is not billed as the fee is waived.

Consult your attorney or IB, I've been told that the exchanges can bill retroactively if you misstate your qualifications. Read the agreements carefully.

Jack

Yup, he's definitely correct about this, I'm doing it. If your only sub-account was the LLC then I'd be more worried. If you have other non-pro sub-accounts I wouldn't think it would be a problem (then again I'm not a lawyer, accountant, or person who has a clue :)) It also would make a difference if you're a registered advisor or not. If you're only trading your own accounts and family and friends I think you'd be OK.
 
Hi All

I recently opened a FFA account. I have a few accounts I would like to control through the Master account. One thing that bothers me is that I have to do paperwork for accounts already open with IB !! The paperwork was done before now I have to do it again.

Is there any way around this? It seems ridiculous to do something that I have already done before. Why can't we just transfer the original accounts .... what's the point of creating new accounts to only transfer already existing accounts into these new accounts.

This approach is mind boggling if you ask me.
 
I think you'll find you are stuck.

One thing to consider before you move all your accounts under the FFA umbrella - If you are one of those guys who trades but does not generate thousands in commissions for IB and you monitor close to 100 different issues and indexes - With each separate account you get 100 items for the $10 fee (less than $30 in commissions). Under the FFA there is no way to get more than 100 until you exceed $800 in monthly commissions and then you get one item per $8 above the $800. IB is not a data seller, they are a broker.

So, if you need or foresee a need for more than 100 items and you trade at a minimal level keep at least one account outside of the FFA. Conversely, if you are currently getting hit for many $10 monthly fees go the FFA route as long as the commissions produced equals or exceeds the number of accounts times $10. I'm not getting into the advantages of being able to trade all accounts simultaneously, a different issue altogether.

Jack
 
Unfortunately you will need to do the paperwork again....although you might try calling, there's a small chance they'd let you re-use some of it.

Jack is right about the commissions. But note that if you switch to unbundled futures commissions and trade a lot you can get discounts on commissions as well since all accounts have their trade quantities summed together for figuring the discount.

SSB
 
Thanks for the replies, they clear up some answers. I guess I'll have to fill out all the forms and mail them again.

Thanks again
 
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