A quick googling around suggests this problem has been occurring around Europe all year. Also, no KID documents appear on SPDR (for SPY) (which I would expect the first to make sure these documents are available). So it could well be possible that it may be sometime (if ever) that these documents are available. It would seem to be rather disruptive to the markets if all EU investors were forced to dump all US-Domiciled ETFs. Also, with the lack of offerings in the EU side (coupled with lower liquidity), it may be prudent to start using the 'Basket Trader' feature in IB and 'roll your own' 'ETF'. However, the lack of access to the US ETF market does make it hard to claim IB as your 'Gateway to the Global Markets'.
I don't particularly blame IB for this although they absolutely should've given a warning, just restricting trading on a Monday without any information is irresponsible. SPDR has to step up, they talked about being in compliance in February, now it's June and nothing has happened. What's that about? Note that for CFDs the relevant information has been made available. Personally, this is just an incentive to update my residency information. The EU financial regulations are a complete clusterf**k for retail at this point and I want nothing to do with it.
As mentionned before the issue seems to be for all using IbUk no matter their residency. I m domiciled in Asia,with an account significantly over 500k with IBUk and can t buy spy either. Gonna check futures and futures options. That s a problem if Not available anymore although on Holidays now and no rush
On my TWS all the US ETFs I track (but have never traded) have red marks against the tickers and the "unavailable..." message pops up. FUT/FOPs on CME, CBOT, Eurex, COMEX, NYMEX seem OK.
A lot of EU brokers are already blocking this for quite a while. IB is actually rather late to implement. Hurray, the EU is protecting us from… (DUH )
This has nothing to do with protecting the customers, this regulation was bought by European ETF underwriters. You buy regulators who sell it to the population as "protection", oldest trick in the book.
You should still be able to close your position as buying it back is not considered holding them. It's buying them that's forbidden when the security doesn't have KID. I agree the situation is absolutely ridiculous and draconian considering that all of these ETF's been around for years and they have detailed prospectuses that provide all the information that is there to know about the security. From what I have learned, KID is just a 2-page summary.