Set up different accounts. You can link them so that you only pay once for the various data subscriptions. A box in TWS lets you choose which account you're working with.
possible,but i disagree with rew about data subscriptions. dunno exactly when,but they(IB) implement this,but you have to pay separately per account. for example arca quotes-$10. now you have pay separately for each sub account,if you need it. so if you have 10 sub accounts and need arca data on all of them-you have to pay $10 on each sub account. you can check it yourself by login into sub account and checking data subscription settings. i wrongfully assumed same thing about data,but did notice some discrepancies between accounts. IB confirmed those changes in data subscriptions. http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=marketData#depth mean each "user" of each account must have separate subscriptions
You are wrong. I have my IRA and trading accounts linked. In my IRA I have stocks on the U.S. exchanges, Canadian exchanges, and LSE, as well as some bonds. So that adds up to a lot of subscriptions. When I look that the fees for the past couple of months for my IRA all I see is a single cancellation fee. When I look at the fees for my trading account I see the fees for the various exchanges, including for the LSE, for which I only have stocks in my IRA. There are actually two levels of linking. One simply lets you log into all your accounts with one login, but doesn't actually share the subscriptions. Some other level of linking actually lets you share all the data subscriptions, I just don't recall what it's called.
Does the subaccounts hurt your buying power in the main account(does the securities in the subaccount count towards your margin)?
rew, here is my example: main account is a joint account with my wife. then there is 2 separate subaccounts. one on my name,another-my wife's. it's same account just separate user name,password.if you login into any of them-the accounts number,positions,BP,whatever-all same. but! if i subscribe for corporate bonds data on main joint account, i'm not going to see bond quotes on any of those sub accounts. same on arca quotes for example. dunno how else they can be linked,but this is what i have right now. and like i said-i did call to Ib and they confirm this. subscriptions such as acra quotes,bonds,etc are per user name i would appreciate,if anyone from IB can explain their data policy and how one can "link" accounts
The securities in my IRA do not add to the buying power in my trading account. (I'm sure it would conflict with some regulation if they did, after all, the IRA is a cash account and the trading account is a margin account. In any case I would not be able to transfer money out of my IRA into my other account to make up for losses, without incurring a big penalty.) You'd have to check with IB about this but I suspect that each account will have to stand on its own, not obtaining more buying power from other linked accounts.
Well, as I said, there seem to be two flavors of "linking", so it's rather confusing. Also, I believe that to share data subscriptions the accounts have to be under the same name.
this could be the key. on other hand dunno how can one have same setup,described in my previous post. same account,3 different user names,passwords.it's probably impossible to open sub account using same name as it was on main account.
If you run a corporate account you can have a master account and multiple sub-accounts (e.g. one per strategy). You can review seperate activity or PnL statements for every account. Margin is calculated on an aggregate account basis, a sub-account won't get liquidated if it is in a margin deficiency and the aggregate master account is not. All sub accounts are accessible from the master account login using an account selector. I put each sub account on a separate TWS tab that is linked to the respective aub account. You pay just one single datafeed regardless of the number of subaccounts. P.S. Careful leaving a sub account dormant with less than 10k. IB may auto-close the account which means you will have to re-open it which may mean a lot of back and forth paperwork. Once you have the sub accounts, make sure the always meet the minimum liquidity requirements.