velosoandre, you are still misunderstanding this issue. Your analysis might lead to further misunderstandings by others on this issue. IB has an enormous international footprint. This thread suggests that IB should provide an unambiguous statement in the native language and dialects of every country for which they sell currency on what has "changed" with respect to SIPC protection of everything kept or swept in the securities sub-account.
If he wants to be a day-trader, he doesn't need to post margin overnight, so it doesn't matter wheter he could just post outright his T-bills as margin or borrow cash intraday against it.
Please quote me because after 47 pages of the thread I don't have the slightest idea of what exactly you're referring to.
Your last quote on this issue: There's no "legal hole." Interactive Brokers said what Interactive Brokers said. SIPC said what SIPC said. Given the IB / SIPC relationship, which view do you think should be promoted withhout qualification to IB traders worldwide? The T-Bill won't solve this issue if the trader is with IB. Others have explained why. Sweeping excess cash into an SEC / SIPC account from a CFTC account does not give any additional SIPC protection. I agree 47 pages on this is excessive. It could have ended on page 10. def was prescient:
Look, (most) people here in the forum are adults and expect to express their opinions and listen to others. Yours is just another one, if you don't like mine there's a very useful ignore button you can click. Having said that, here's a synthesis of what I said (Disclaimer: it's MY opinion) There is a legal hole: any law that leaves to a future decision to a court something that might or not be insured IS a legal hole. Otherwise SIPC and/or IB could have clarified that already, and so far nobody yet has a *king clue. It is a legal hole, a joke, just as CFTC segregation rules, as anybody can now see that with MF Global. The T-Bill does solve the issue for a day-trader, which was the question asked. If the trader had 500K in cash he could buy the 500k with a T-Bill, and either the T-Bill would be accepted straight away as collateral, OR even if it wasn't, since IB only requires 1% margin for a T-Bill, the remaining 450K would be free to be posted as futures margin. Since the trader is a full day-trader he doesn't care about the potential interest charge since he wouldn't leave the futures margin overnight. By the way, any person having more than 250k should buy a treasury anyway since SIPC only insures cash to 250k. About the "Given the IB / SIPC relationship, which view do you think should be promoted withhout qualification to IB traders worldwide?" Not sure what you mean with this "relationship". As for the rest, I don't need to promote or dispromote anything, If a person wants to expect the worst he can just assume there is no SIPC insurance for forex cash. Otherwise a person can check as to what effectively happened in the past - something that I explained - and do their own homework. Again, I think we're all adults here and any person can do whatever they want with the information, provided at least it is accurate, which it is. If people ever relied only in official information from bureaucrats to make decisions there wouldn't be bank runs, 2008 would have never happened, the subprime crisis would still be contained and there would never be a eurozone country defaulting. At this point, all I know is, what can't happen won't happen. Either the SIPC continues to treat all cash in SIPC accounts exactly the same way as in the past, or we better think there's no insurance, period. The middle ground, where SIPC tries to demand that an investor proves a certain cash is attached to a purchase of a security, is bogus, impossible, leaves so many holes and it's untreatable, and so far it never happened. As for the "Sweeping excess cash into an SEC / SIPC account from a CFTC account does not give any additional SIPC protection. " You should also disclaim that it's just your opinion, based on your interpretation of SIPC statement (they haven't actualy said it is/isn't) , just like mine is based in history and actual practice and precedents. What you do with that information, it's up to you. I don't know to which firm you work for but you do seem a little offended everytime you think I'm trying to defend IB/SIPC or anybody else.
I am an Interactive Brokers European client whose account has been moved to Ireland (IBIE) after Brexit. I only trade futures intraday and at the end of every day my account has only cash. In case of insolvency/bankruptcy of IB, is it more safe to have the money in the "commodity account" or in the "securities account" ? I would like to stipulate a contract with an insurance company that covers from the risk of insolvency/bankruptcy of IB. Can you suggest one? Many thanks.