yes, that's it, with the exeption there is no "have" or "must". you can carry around your balances, p/l, as long as you want (e.g. you trade FESX 1 month, and convert you profit once a month)
forgot: the FX spread is not like FX brokers, but you can put in a limit order on IDEAL (between the spread)
sorry but which operation was the good one ? the first one or the second one ? And were the fees associated the good one ? And do you pay the fixed comm each time you open a position in a foreign currency or only when you finally convert your P&L?
example: i have an USD-based account with all USDs in it. i trade ESTOXX fut. 20 days, close always intraday, 20 rt. per day. the commissions are taken from my EUR subaccount, which gets into debit. however, i made decent profits with the futures... after 20 days i have made 10000EUR, -1000EUR commissions, which i accumulated over the days. i want to get a new car, i sell EUR on IDEAL vs. USD (paying commissions) and get it wired out... got it ?
Still unclear sorry 1. 1000 EUR commissions is...IB future comm or FX commissions? 400 trades (20x20) should be 1600 EUR that is why I asked. 2. Sell EUR/USD is like buying USD/EUR right ? 3. What do you call EUR subaccount? Do you mean EUR P&L on your universal account ?
1. futures commish 2. yes, the same 3. an universal account has many hidden subaccounts, i assume (e.g. USD stocks, USD futures, EUR, HKD, GBP, ETC), they are IB internal
Ok I understood... I think IB should do a page with various trader profile and explain it that way with examples. We are not all used to FX operations... Last question : When you sell EUR/USD you pay : 1. 2.95$ comm ? 2. 3.25⬠? Then I guess when you buy USD/EUR you pay the other one...
good question, i think this is due to your account base currency, when you do not trade cross-currency. the currency commish is more if it is taken on an EUR basis (since EUR is - was less worth than one USD). also possible: the currency bought determines commission currency - and therefore the amount.
I would think like what you said at the end : the currency bought determine the commission If you sell EUR vs USD you indeed buy USD so they would substract the 2.95$ from the EUR amount that has just been converted in USD... Sounds logical for me... I sent a mail to IB to ask them to do a dedicated FX pages with clear real life examples of trader profile, more informations on the classical FX spread on majors & crosses, and on the margin they practise for FX, also they should clearly write that they don't accept incoming EUR wires to a USD Universal and so on... I guess the questions we asked will become the top 1 question to IB helpdesk if they don't write this page. Maybe also a test about all those conversions when you open a universal would be good so that everybody study& understand how the multicurrency part work.
Just to answer my question You don't pay anymore 10$+10$ for stocks & emini you just pay 10$, free if above 30$ in comm in the month...