IB: Small balances in various currencies

Quote from ZRA:

Yes your solution works but with some drawbacks. You pay double commission if you do it in "buy 100k sell 101k". It may still not worth it if your balance is quite small.

I think we just have to bite the bullet until IB offers us a function to manually close out residuals.

I don't think IB wants to implement though due to the conflict of interest. :(
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I think you have not understood what I wrote.
There is no double commission, just normal trading costs on IDEALPRO.
You do not do anything extra, just trade normally.
And if you do it the right way, you can even generate trading gains with it.

My solution simply integrates conversions into normal trading and eliminates it this way.

Just wrap your mind around it, there is nothing extraordinary with it, only an intelligent way of trading that eliminates residuals and the need for ANY conversions EVER. :)
 
Quote from pescador:

...only an intelligent way of trading that eliminates residuals and the need for ANY conversions EVER. :)
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This "intelligent" way of trading may work under some circumstances.

I am following a rather successfull strategy that requires to trade only small chunks (sometimes e.g. equivalent of only 3000 USD) of a basket of currencies. There it is just not applicable.

And it should certainly not be the business of the customer to find "workarounds".

Only reason I am staying with IB for forex is that Oanda is charging unrealistic fees for their API.
 
Quote from ZRA:

Does it really happen? When did this happen to you last time? How much was converted back?

The small balances have been there for quite some time. IB doesn't seem to do anything about it.
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The last one I found was from April 1. I had 0.28 GBP and IB wiped it out and gave me 0.43 USD. It showed up in my activity statement as a trade. Now the joke is that they do this based on your actual cash balance EXCLUDING accrued interest. So first they bring it to zero and then the next month, without doing any trading, you can end up with another small balance.

But I'm with everyone else not to worry about it.
 
Quote from pescador:

I think you have not understood what I wrote.
There is no double commission, just normal trading costs on IDEALPRO.
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What I mean by "double commission" is:

You have to buy/sell once if you convert via Ideal. You only pay USD 2.50 once.

You have to buy and sell back (or sell and buy back) if you want to use IdealPro. You pay USD 2.50 twice.

I'm a position trader and I can hold a position for months so there may not be so many "chances" for me to close out residuals.
 
Quote from uexkuell:

This "intelligent" way of trading may work under some circumstances.

And it should certainly not be the business of the customer to find "workarounds".
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I agree with that. :)

Traders who trade stocks/futures/options in various currencies can get residuals too so this "intelligent" way of trading may not applicable to all types of traders.

I still wish IB would provide a formal channel for us to manually close out residuals without commission (or minimum commission).
 
Quote from ZRA:

That sounds fine. I wish IB could provide this service which let me close out small residuals without commish perhaps via account management. The rates would be day-end. This increases the flexibility of currency management.
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I called about this and a rep walked me thru the process of removing them. Yes I was charged a commission. But they came right back.

I finaly just blew it off. I think it's a gimmick to earn easy cash.
 
This 'intelligent' way of trading you guys speak of would be a bit smarter if you figured your p&l into your exit amount, instead seeing what it is and try to make up for it in the next trade. But regardless how you do it, neither way you will get rid of residuals, unless you insist on exiting on prices that will produce a whole number on the 4th decimal as entry price / exit price ratio. And that would be just plain stupid.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

You can email to ask them to get rid of it. But really they should provide a "sweep all balances into base currency" function for one single commission.
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Email them? :eek:
Do you know which email?

That's new to me. :p
 
Quote from FattBurger:

I called about this and a rep walked me thru the process of removing them. Yes I was charged a commission. But they came right back.

I finaly just blew it off. I think it's a gimmick to earn easy cash.
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If you were charged a commission why don't we just do it ourselves in TWS? It has no difference, hasn't it?

Or do they charge you without minimum commission?
 
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