News @ IBKR - Volume 10

IBKR Choices

NEW TOOLS

A New Choice for IBKR Clients

Interactive Brokers' US clients have the freedom to choose the pricing plan best aligned with their investing needs and can switch between plans as their investing needs change.

During Q4 2019, we introduced the IBKR Lite pricing plan. IBKR Lite offers $0 commissions on US listed stocks and ETFs,1 no account minimums or activity fees and a low financing rate. In addition, clients on the IBKR Lite plan can continue trading with Trader Workstation (TWS), as well as IBKR Mobile and Client Portal. This plan was introduced as a complement to our traditional pricing plan, IBKR Pro.

IBKR Pro uses our IB SmartRoutingSM technology, which delivered an average net benefit after commissions of $4.42 per trade during the second half of 2019.2 In addition, IBKR Pro clients enjoy our lowest financing rates, including rates that decrease with higher loan values and access to our full offering of trading technology.

Regardless of plan, our clients enjoy global access to stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds from a single integrated account, use of Trader Workstation (TWS), Client Portal, IBKR Mobile and other premier trading technology, and the opportunity to earn extra income by lending fully paid shares of stock.

Bond Scanner

New Tools

Use the IBKR Bond Scanner to Take the Bond Challenge

Interactive Brokers strives to provide the best deal on bonds by passing through to our clients the highest of all bids and lowest of all offers we receive from the electronic venues we access. We do not widen spreads, apply hidden fees or mark up quotes.

IBKR clients can also interact with each other by placing bids and offers and negotiating online to execute their trades.

Our new IBKR Bond Scanner helps you find the best prices on bonds and search for yield from among our deep availability of US government securities, over 38,000 global corporate bonds, 851,000 municipal securities, 33,000 CDs and 1,900 non-US sovereign bonds, plus fixed income futures and fixed income options.

With the new Bond Scanner, you can:

  • Search for a maturity date range and locate bond yields.
  • Scan by industry for corporate bonds or by state for municipal bonds.
  • Define values for minimum and maximum yield-to-worst.
  • Define high yield or investment grade universe of bonds.
  • Use Moody's and S&P ratings filters to evaluate risk vs return.
  • Quickly scan corporates, CDs, treasuries and municipal bonds by clicking the "bond type" button.

Try the Bond Scanner today!


NEW TOOLS

US Clients can use IBKR Mobile for Check Deposit

Depositing funds to your IBKR account is now as easy as taking a picture.

The IBKR Mobile app now includes Mobile Check Deposit. Simply access the Services menu from the top left corner of the IBKR Mobile More menu. Select Banking and tap Deposit Check, enter the amount and scan both sides of an endorsed check. If you hold multiple accounts with IBKR, you will be prompted to identify the desired account for the deposit. After authenticating with IB Key, your deposit will be submitted.

Once approved and processed, the funds are deposited directly into your IBKR account and are generally available within 6 business days after the deposit is approved.

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IBKR Trading Platform

New Tools

New Features for Trading Platforms

We recently added new functionality to our platforms to help deliver a powerful and seamless trading experience, whether you're trading on-the-go or from your desktop.

  • ESG Scores on ETFs and Mutual Funds:
    Socially conscious investors can now factor in ESG scores as they make their investment decisions on ETFs and Mutual Funds. These ESG scores are based on the weighted average scores of the top company holdings.
  • What-If Cash Adjustment in IB Risk NavigatorSM:
    When you make hypothetical adjustments like adding, removing or modifying positions in your "what-if" portfolio, the IB Risk Navigator cash adjustment now treats these positions changes as if you made a trade and adjusts the cash in your what-if portfolio accordingly.

 

New Feature

Earn Extra Income by Lending Fully Paid Shares of Hong Kong Stock3

Clients of Interactive Brokers, LLC (“IBKR”) and Interactive Brokers Hong Kong (“IBHK”) can now earn extra income by lending fully paid shares of Hong Kong stock as part of our Stock Yield Enhancement Program. The program gives our clients a way to earn extra income by lending fully paid shares to IBKR or IBHK in exchange for a portion of the interest short sellers are willing to pay to borrow the shares.

If you already participate in the program you are automatically permissioned for lending Hong Kong shares of stock. IBKR and IBHK handle all program activities with no restriction on your ability to trade your shares. In addition, you can monitor indicative lending rates in real time by configuring Trader Workstation (TWS) to display the Fee Rate column.

While a stock is loaned, you retain the ability to sell the stock at any time and continue to recognize any profit or loss. IBKR and IBHK use highly automated systems to identify shares of interest, credit loan interest to your account and provide daily activity statements detailing the quantity loaned, collateral amount, market interest rate, charges and net interest.

IBKR and IBHK pay half the gross amount earned from lending the shares to borrowers and retain half as compensation for coordinating the program and guaranteeing the return of shares.

Please review the SYEP FAQ and Enrollment Instructions for additional information about participating in the program.

NEW PRODUCTS

New Trading Venues, Products and Research Available on the IBKR Platform

New Trading Venues / Products

Products:

Explore all the products available on the IBKR Platform.

Expanded Research Offerings

The following research providers were recently added to the IBKR platform.

  • BCMstrategy, Inc.
    The BCMstrategy, Inc. operates at the frontier of knowledge technology, using 9+ levels of patented analytical process automation to identify global macrotrends in policy trajectories by converting the words of the public policy process into structured data.
  • Channelchek
    Channelchek is Noble's free investor portal that offers independent research, balanced news, advanced market data, webcasts, roadshows, videos, podcasts and more.
  • Gordon Haskett
    GHRA's leading event-driven research team led by Don Bilson generates insights and actionable stock ideas by analyzing and attempting to anticipate strategic events, including M&A, activism, spinoffs, restructurings, and board/management changes.
  • Naviga Inc.
    Using our proprietary taxonomy, Naviga creates aggregated news topics from thousands of reputable business sources including Pro-feeds, regulatory announcements, rumor wires and web sites.

View our current listing of research providers.

Short Selling US Treasuries

New Tools

IBKR Adds Support for Short Selling US Treasuries

IBKR clients can now gain exposure to both the long and short sides of the US Treasury market. Short sell orders can be entered through Trader Workstation (TWS) or with the support of the Bond Order Desk.

The margin requirements, financing and interest rates on short US Treasury positions are the same as those for long US Treasury positions. The minimum short position size is USD 10 million face value per CUSIP due to US Treasury borrow market limitations. Once the minimum position is met, the minimum order increment is USD 1 million.

US Treasuries with an outstanding value of greater than USD 14 billion can be sold short, but US TIPs, STRIPs, TF (floating rate notes) and WITFs (when-issued floating rate notes) are not available for shorting.

EXPANDED OFFERING

Market Commentary Delivered to Your Inbox



traders' insight
Daily Market Commentary from Traders' Insight

Traders' Insight, our market commentary blog, is a venue for market-related articles and videos from individuals at over 70 firms. In addition, IBKR's Chief Strategist Steve Sosnick and Senior Analyst Steve Levine offer market commentary and weekly economic previews. The content covers an array of asset classes and topics, and the site displays over a dozen categories, including ESG, a topic increasingly being seen in today's headlines written by both small firms and large institutions.

qunat blog
Deep Learning, IBKR API, Artificial Intelligence and More at the IBKR Quant Blog

Quants and finance professionals will find the latest news and sample code for data science and trading using Python, R, and other programming languages.


Connect with IBKR on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.

Traders' Insight:

IBKR Quant:

Student Trading Lab:

Corporate:
Traders' Academy

EXPANDED OFFERINGS

New Course Available at Traders' Academy

Traders' Academy offers investors, educators and students over 45 courses on the products, markets, currencies and tools available at Interactive Brokers. Each course uses a syllabus to define instructional goals, clearly states learning objectives and delivers content across multiple lessons. Quizzes and tests are used to benchmark progress against learning objectives and each course uses a combination of online lessons, videos or notes to help students learn at their own pace. In addition, students can ask questions of IBKR subject matter experts, provide written feedback on each course and rate their learning experience.

We recently added the following course:

US Taxes for US Non-Residents

In this series, we will look at US taxes for non-US individuals. Definitions are critical in this area of US tax and we will start with them. The information in this presentation is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice and cannot be used by the recipient or any other taxpayer to avoid penalties under any federal, state, local or other tax statutes or regulations, or to resolve any tax issue.



EXPANDED OFFERINGS

Turnkey Solutions for Advisors of Any Size

IBKR offers turnkey solutions that help advisors of any size build competitive advantage, efficiently manage their business and serve clients at the lowest cost.


Advisor Model Marketplace

The Advisor Model Marketplace is a centralized repository of model portfolios provided by third-party vendors. Model portfolios can help you spend more time with clients by reducing the administrative burden of managing client-specific portfolios. In addition, you may find that model portfolios simplify the process of investing client assets, serve as the basis for creating custom model portfolios, assist in scaling your business and help with regulatory compliance.

You will need to subscribe to Model Portfolios and the Model Marketplace to review our offering of third-party vendor models. Subscribe by logging in to Advisor Portal and selecting the Settings > Account Settings menu item. Click the Configure (gear) icon next to Model Marketplace to subscribe to both.

Once subscribed, you can access the Model Marketplace via the Advisor Setup window in Trader Workstation (TWS) and import models to store as target allocations for your investments, reallocate client funds to newly added model portfolios and periodically rebalance existing portfolios.


Support Global Clients from a Single Integrated Master Account

Interactive Brokers has clients from more than 200 countries and territories. With our new global financial advisor account structure, advisors can now support clients from any jurisdiction with a single, integrated advisor master account.

Advisors still need to apply for an IBKR account and meet the requirements for offering advisory services within any given jurisdiction in which they would like to offer services.

Advisors interested in learning more about the Global Master Account should contact globalfa@interactivebrokers.com.


Greenwich Compliance Helps US Advisors with Registration and Compliance Needs

Greenwich Advisor Compliance Services Corporation (Greenwich Compliance) was launched in 2016 to help advisors trading on the Interactive Brokers platform meet their compliance and registration needs in the United States.

We offer resources and services to help advisors with issues ranging from registration to day-to-day compliance and can help advisors of all stripes, from established registered advisors to those just starting their own firms. Greenwich Compliance professionals have regulatory and industry experience and can help advisors navigate the maze of regulatory requirements and compliance obligations that they face.

Whether you are transitioning from a financial advisory firm, big bank, or a wire house or just starting your own firm, you are likely to have questions about the complex SEC and state registration requirements. Greenwich Compliance professionals are available for a free consultation to answer your questions about when and where to register.

Registration Services
Greenwich Compliance offers direct expert registration and start-up compliance services. At a reasonable cost, Greenwich Compliance professionals take an active role in helping firms through the registration process, including assistance with:

  • Preparing and completing Form ADV and other SEC or state application documents your firm or staff need to file.
  • Drafting client agreements, compliance documents and manuals.
  • Locating third-party providers offering operational and administrative start-up services commonly used by new businesses.

Greenwich Compliance gives advisors customized service and puts in the time to know you and your firm’s needs. We strive to provide you with a tailored approach to get you started on the road to running the properly registered and compliant firm your regulators and clients expect.

Compliance Services
Advisors on the Interactive Brokers trading platform can contact Greenwich Compliance for answers to their basic day-to-day compliance questions. Greenwich Compliance will also help guide advisors who need targeted compliance services to third-party providers that specialize in a variety of advisor compliance services, many of whom offer discounts to advisors trading through IB.

Visit Greenwich Compliance for more information.

New Products

Interactive Advisors Adds Six Socially Responsible Investing Portfolios

Interactive Advisors Socially Responsible Investing portfolios are designed to invest in companies that operate businesses with socially desirable products and services, incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into investment decision-making. The goal is to incentivize better practices from the issuing companies. Portfolios are constructed using a rules-based approach, offered at a relatively low cost and managed by Interactive Advisors' Chief Investment Officer and Investment Management team. Each portfolio has a minimum investment of USD 1,000 and an AUM fee of just 0.11%.

Each of the following portfolios invests in companies that focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building energy efficient products, reducing energy footprint, using alternative energy sources and conserving water:

  • Clean Energy: Designed to invest in US companies that are leading the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
  • Low Greenhouse Emissions: Designed to invest in US companies that have low direct and indirect greenhouse emissions.
  • Clean Technology: Designed to invest in US companies that develop products which directly or indirectly reduce harmful environmental impact.

Each of the following portfolios invests in companies that promote safe working conditions, diversity and have a strong ethical track record:

  • Good Business Ethics: Designed to invest in US companies with a reputation for honest dealing, ethical behavior and integrity, as well as a code of ethics to set standards of behavior across the workforce.
  • Workforce Diversity: Designed to invest in US companies paving the way for diversity and equality in the workplace.
  • Fair Labor: Designed to invest in US companies with processes and policies in place against abusive labor practices.

Please note that commissions for trades in these portfolios charged by Interactive Advisors' affiliated broker-dealer Interactive Brokers LLC are separate and in addition to Interactive Advisors' management fee.

ESG investment strategies could limit the types and number of investment opportunities available to these portfolios, lead the portfolios to underperform portfolios without an ESG focus or with a distinct ESG focus, and result in these portfolios investing in securities or industry sectors that underperform the market as a whole or foregoing opportunities to invest in securities that might otherwise be advantageous to invest in. Interactive Advisors could also be unsuccessful in creating a portfolio composed of companies that exhibit positive ESG characteristics. To review the full risk disclosures for investments in these portfolios, please read this document. Interactive Advisors' most recently updated Form ADV Informational Brochure may be reviewed here.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and all investments, including those in this portfolio, involve the risk of loss, including loss of principal and a reduction in earnings.

Interactive Advisors is currently licensed to offer investment services to US residents only. This communication and Interactive Advisors' website are NOT intended to be a solicitation or advertisement in any jurisdiction other than the United States. Interactive Advisors does not provide tax advice, does not make representations regarding the particular tax consequences of any portfolio investments and cannot assist clients with tax filings. Clients investing in Interactive Advisors portfolios should consult with their tax professional about the tax consequences of investing in Interactive Advisors portfolios.

IBKR AWARDS 2020

A New Decade, Same Impressive Results

Interactive Brokers started 2020 in a familiar spot – being recognized for our low cost, premium trading technology and global product offering.

StockBrokers.com 2020 Annual Review

StockBrokers.com rated Interactive Brokers 4.5 stars out of 5 overall in its 10th Annual Best Online Brokers Review. Interactive Brokers won 1st place with a 5-star rating for Commissions & Fees and was awarded 4.5 stars for Offering of Investments, Platforms & Tools and Mobile Trading. The company earned 4 stars for Research, Education, and Customer Service. The review notes that Interactive Brokers leads the industry for low-cost trading for professionals and praises the company for its tools and product selection.

2020 NerdWallet Awards

NerdWallet rated Interactive Brokers the best for low-cost investing, stock trading platform, and research. The review also praises the company's low margin rates, broad product selection and IBKR Lite service, which provides commission-free trades on stocks and ETFs.

Investor's Business Daily – Best Brokers 2020

In IBD's eighth annual Best Online Brokers awards, Interactive Brokers placed in the top 5 overall and secured top spots in 9 out of 15 categories. The company earned the highest scores for Low Commissions & Fees, Broad Choice of Investments, Mobile Trading Platforms / Apps, Options Trading Platform, Portfolio Analysis & Reports and Website Security.

2019 Calendar App

New Tools

2019 Tax Form Availability

Please note that 2019 tax forms will be accessible in the coming weeks via the Reports > Tax menu in Client Portal. Alternatively, you can visit the Tax Information and Reporting section of our website for additional information.

 

Margin borrowing is only for sophisticated investors with high risk tolerance. You may lose more than your initial investment.

Supporting documentation for any claims and statistical information will be provided upon request.

Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. For more information read the "Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options". For a copy, call 312 542-6901

Any trading symbols displayed are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to portray recommendations.

[1] IBKR Lite provides commission-free trades in US exchange-listed stocks and ETFs routed to select market makers. IBKR may charge non-commission related fees. For more information, see ibkr.com/liteinfo. IBKR Lite with use of Trader Workstation (TWS) is only available to US residents who have individual, joint or trust accounts, or Financial Advisors.

[2] Average net benefit is calculated using IHS Markit price improvement and IBKR Monthly Execution statistics. For more information see, ibkr.com/info

[3] For more information see, ibkr.com/syep. HK stock is listed under Availability List > Stock Availability.

Margin loan rates and credit interest rates are subject to change without prior notice.

Please keep in mind that Interactive Advisors is currently licensed to offer investment services to US residents only. This communication or Interactive Advisors' website is NOT intended to be a solicitation or advertisement in any jurisdiction other than the United States. Note that commissions for trades in these portfolios charged by Interactive Advisors' affiliate, Interactive Brokers LLC, are separate and in addition to our management fee. Note that there may be similar offerings in the marketplace with lower investment costs. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and all investments, including those in these portfolios, involve the risk of loss, including loss of principal and a reduction in earnings. For a set of full disclosures regarding investments in these portfolios, please review this document: risk-disclosures-for-socially-responsible-investing-portfolios-28-nov-2019.pdf