I'm currently unemployed and manage my own money. When asked to update my personal Employment Information details at IB, does it make any difference choosing Unemployed vs. Home Trader?
Home Trader would give the suggestion that you consider it to be a job, hopefully a well-paying job. If you're are not actively trading, but only do a trade every now and then to keep your investments in line with your strategy I would not consider that a full-time job. In that case would Unemployed be a better description of your current employment situation.
I would choose "Unemployed" in case if they try to categorize you as a professional trader just because of this "personal employment information" crap that you have to fill out for IB's compliance purposes especially that in your case, you really are unemployed and just managing your own money for your own personal uses.
If you put unemployed yet deposit 100k into the account, anti money laundering red flags could pop up. But then again can just tell them it’s a temporary situation. This is one of the reasons they ask these questions...
If you put unemployed your broker may refuse to give you margin and/or short-selling privileges. In other words he will set your "leverage" to 1 to 1.
They only care that you aren’t employed in the securities industry or are an officer at a publicly traded company. If you have money and it’s a reasonable sum and you aren’t doing a thousand withdrawals and deposits then you don’t have to worry about anti money laundering flags. If you have enough money they won’t care how you got it and will give you margin. There are literally millions of customers who are unemployed trading on margin with small accounts.
have you been under a rock for the last 1 year? What do you think wsb is? but remember when you arbitraged yourself trading FX?