IB: No Trading permission, Account Requirements

[BlueHorseshoe]

Def,

I don't have any problems with your statements other than your lawyer was saying somthing entirely different.

"Where are you from? If you are a U.S. legal resident you cannot trade non-US stock options. You can trade non-US futures and options on futures."

1. He all but assumes the client is a US resident, which we now know to be false.
2. He states that all US legal residents cannot trade overseas listed options, which you agree is false and based on the SEC website is plainly false.
3. He then makes a sweeping statement that a US-resident can trade non-US futures and options on futures, which we both know must be severely qualified.

Perhaps US brokers cannot offer non-US options to a certain class of client, I'm not sure. That certainly doesn't mean, however, that the poster does or doesn't belong to that class or couldn't trade them through someone else - an overseas broker perhaps.

As you mentioned, we've both had experience with these legal beagles. My experience is that they spout opinions without doing the most basic of homework - quite ridiculous.

Blue

Quote from def:



Blue: i pointed out the EXACT quote from the Web site to our legal/compliance group over a year ago. They specifically folllowed up and were advised that the answer is clearly “NO” unless they are a Qualified Institutional Buyer (generally over $100,000,000 in assets).

They could not explain the statement on the SEC FAQ except to say that it may not be illegal for a US customer to buy one if they could find a foreign broker who would do it, but it would be a problem for a US broker to offer them to US customers.

Are you aware of any US brokerage firm offering non US equity options to US retail customers?
---

I agree the rule doesn't make sense considering US customers can trade foreign futures but given our legal advice, US brokers can not offer them.

 

[def]

blue,
maybe i'm missing something. the correspondence, upon which I was cc'd over a year ago, doesn't say anything about US citizens not being legally able to trade non-US equity options. It states that US brokers can not OFFER non-US equity options. Thus as a US broker IB (the US entity) can't offer them.

oh should add...

As you mentioned, we've both had experience with these legal beagles. My experience is that they spout opinions without doing the most basic of homework - quite ridiculous

in this case I am certain that the legal beagles you're talking about did their homework as I've seen the correspondence.

DF

 

[alanm]

Quote from BlueHorseshoe:
As you mentioned, we've both had experience with these legal beagles. My experience is that they spout opinions without doing the most basic of homework - quite ridiculous.

I'd say that IB's counsel seems to "do his homework" more than those of most other firms. I have the feeling that other firms don't ask questions of the SEC when they don't want them to say no, whereas IB asks the question anyway, preferring to be safe. In several cases over the last few years, IB has been more restrictive about some issue than other firms. The other firms eventually ended up getting whacked by the regulators, and IB turned out to be correct. The most recent example of this is bullets.

 

[BlueHorseshoe]

Def, Alanm,

I don't want to argue 'cause I know the two of have been around the block.

Suffice to say Bluehorseshoe thinks the IB counsel's post was irrelevant and most anything they post here and elsewhere tends to be slipshod and unreliable.

Btw, you might ask the originator of this thread whether they thought the IB legal contribution was either relevant or reliable.