Is there way to diversify among currencies on IB TWS?

Discussion in 'Interactive Brokers' started by travis, Mar 4, 2013.

  1. travis

    travis

    Does anyone know how to manage IB's account currency so to diversify among different currencies? It might have something to do with IdealPro, but I don't remember exactly how to do it.

    So far I've only managed to have some euros, but they're from my GBL (German Bund) trades. I would like to ask you how to buy Euros, JPY, GBP.

    I trade futures, so I only need margin, and I'd like to diversify my capital among 4 different currencies, while still using it as margin.
     
  2. You've never seen the FX trader screen?

    You can select conversion instead of trade if the prompt is set up and it will be marked as conversion of assets (this is just for book keeping, you dont really need to care). If you want to buy GBP, sell USD.GBP. What's confusing you?
     
  3. travis

    travis

    Thank you for your help.

    I tried IB forex and I cannot set up any symbols on it. Then I, more simply, tried to insert USD.GBP on TWS (regular rows) and it didn't let me. It only let me insert GBP.USD, at which point I bought 1k, but it doesn't look like "cash", but as "1k". I did manage to make the others look like "cash", but only via trades on GBL, and on forex itself.

    It seems that I don't want to trade forex but convert "cash" in USD with "cash" in other currencies. But I haven't figured out how to do it. This isn't exactly the clearest thing to do on TWS. I never had problems with other issues, such as futures.
     
  4. travis

    travis

    Adding one of two files that might help show the problem.
     
  5. travis

    travis

    Adding second of two files that might help show the problem.

    Here it says fx cash can be found and traded on the account window (real fx), but non-base currency can only be eliminated, and not increased. So this doesn't solve my problem.
     
  6. travis

    travis

    Bingo!

    Problem solved: