I have two accts with IB, a corporate acct and a personal acct. The corporate acct got a book, my personal acct did not - the corporate acct has a much higher balance. About half the time, either acct falls short of generating minimum commissions in any given month.
FWIW, I think this is an outstanding gesture on IB's part. The nature of the book is to help traders better understand the markets since knowledge equates to better profitability - as the note from TP on the inside cover suggests. Even given a substantial discount to the $95 list, IB obviously ordered a bunch to give to customers at considerable expense of their own. This was a complete surprise and an unexpected effort from a broker and further serves to reinforce my belief that IB is very different from any broker I have ever had.
Harris is the head of finance at USC's Marshall biz school and currently the chief economist at the SEC. He's also a University of Chicago grad. For some reason, Univ of Chicago grads have a knack for good writing on the markets, econ and finance. I have read several other good books by UoC alum.
I'm still not sure of the criteria for distribution of the book, but I'm glad I got one.
