IB COMMUNIQUE (new features and benefits)
Trading to Be Available for Hong Kong Stocks and Warrants
By mid-February we will be introducing trading in Hong Kong Stocks and Warrants on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. We have also recently introduced Forex cash index options on the PHLX, and cocoa, coffee, cotton, orange juice and sugar soft commodity future contracts on the NYMEX. Information for Hong Kong Stocks and Warrants will be posted to our Exchange Listings web page when available, and details for PHLX Forex cash index options and NYMEX soft commodities is now available on our Exchange Listings web page.
Lower Commissions for VWAP and Forex Trades
Guaranteed Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) commissions have been lowered to $.01 per share. A VWAP trade allows you to specify a time period for US stock pricing with Interactive Brokers guaranteeing you the Volume Weighted Average Price of the market as reported by Bloomberg for this time period. For more information on VWAPs, click here.
We also now provide lower volume tiered pricing for cash forex trades that starts at .10 of a basis point for over $200 million in daily trade volume and works its way up to the current rate of .20 of a basis point. See our Forex Commissions page for more details.
Friends and Family Accounts
For those individual customers who would like to trade multiple accounts (individual, IRA, joint, wife, child, relative or family friend account) from a single interface, we encourage you to consider a Friends and Family account. This account allows a single individual to log into TWS or Account Management and have access to all accounts. We also make transfers easy by providing a utility that will transfer all positions and cash balances from your old account to your new account over the weekend. For more information on opening a Friends and Family account, click here.
Trader Workstation Enhancements
We have been busy at work on the following Trader Workstation enhancements:
- Ability to display Exchange for Physical (EFP) prices as annualized or compounded annualized interest rates by right-clicking the Bid or Ask price field.
- You can now trade EFPs from the BasketTrader.
- You now have the ability to set a calculation end time for VWAP orders using the Exp. Time field.
- Comprehensive Contract/Order Description window that you open by double-clicking the Description field on a ticker line. Expands to show the order description when you create an order from the selected ticker.
- Ability to sort lines on the trading window by clicking in a column header.
- Right-click access to the Order Defaults page from both a ticker line and an order line.
- Ability to quickly add another option ticker based on Next Expiry, Previous Expiry, Next Strike or Previous - Strike from the right-click menu on an option ticker line.
- Display the new trading toolbar on detached pages using checkbox on Toolbar section of Global Configuration.
- Hotkeys that are configured to Instantaneously Transmit, now show an asterisk next to their name in the status line along the bottom of the application.
- The active trading tab now displays two new icons that allow you to detach the page or delete the page with a single click.
For more information on these and all TWS changes, see our Release Notes.
TWS API (Application Program Interface)
We are constantly at work enhancing our TWS API technology and its supporting documentation. The APIs let you trade the same products you can trade using TWS, including stocks, options, futures, forex, and bonds, and support multiple programming languages, including DDE for Excel, Java, Visual Basic 6.0 and .NET for ActiveX, and C++.
The latest beta release 9.1 of the TWS API includes full support for Exchange for Physical (EFP) trading on all of our API platforms.
For more information on TWS API-supported features, see the API Release Notes, the API section of the TWS Users' Guide and the TWS Excel API Beginners Guide.
New Market Data Fees
For 2007 a number of exchanges have modified their market data fees as follows:
KEY: Exchange; Before fee: New Fee Subscription
- US Options Exchange Professional (Before) USD 32.35 (New) USD 20
- Euronext Cash Market Level I (Before) EUR 18 (New) EUR 19
- Euronext Cash Market Level II (Before) EUR 58 (New) EUR 61
- Euronext.Liffe Equity Derivatives and Indices - Level I (Before) EUR 32 (Now) EUR 30
- Euronext.Liffe Equity Derivatives and Indices - Level II (Before) EUR 37 (Now) EUR 36
- IDEM Level II Non-Professional (Before) EUR 10 (Now) EUR 16.50
- IDEM Level II Professional (Before) EUR 35 (Now) EUR 40
If you wish to view or modify your market data subscriptions, please log into the market data subscription page via Account Management > Market Data Page Subscribtions