Trading cash with IB

[GreyingSurfer]

I've been trying to buy som euros in my IB account today, with £, to balance a negative euro balance I've built up. However, every time I try I get a message saying "The price cannot be empty". However, there is no price field on the cash order form!

Has anyone done this, and can advise on how to do it? I've set up an entry for Euros/£, click on the ask brings up the order window, enter amount, press Transmit and get the error! Any ideas?

 

[one/two]

i'm having the same problem with $ / £. I 'm in the process of sorting it out. I have sent A screen shot to IB. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[GreyingSurfer]

Thanks, one/two. It's good to know it's not just me!

 

[Trader333]

Hmm, I will also be interested in the outcome of this so I hope it all goes well.

Paul

 

[Skimbleshanks]

Perhaps I've misunderstood the question, but you can only add and remove money from your IB account in the base currency. So if you opened your account as a GBP account, then only GBPs can be added, etc.

 

[Trader333]

Skim,

You are correct that you can only withdraw money in the base currency of the account you have. I thought that the above requests are for trading currencies ? which is a way of hedging as Peter seemed to indicate.


Paul

 

[GreyingSurfer]

Skimleshanks

I'm not trying to pay euros into a £ account. I have been trading euro instruments in a £ base currency account and have built up some losses I want to pay off with £, from the main part of the account. I currently pay interest on the euros IB have 'lent' me which is a fair bit more than I get on the £ equivalent.

You should be able to just buy euros to do this, the user manual explains how. However, it doesn't seem to work! That's my problem.

 

[one/two]

o.k. grey surfing

if your having the same problem as me then this should correct it.

1) go to configure on your TWS
2) go to order and then order defaults
3) look at the list of trading instruments e.g cash-GBP-USD
4) look at the order default it should be LMT for limit not MKT for market.
5) I changed both the currencies to LMT

this has solved my problem, I hope it helps you.
good luck.

 

[GreyingSurfer]

one/two,

Thanks. They were both set to Mkt. IDEAL isn't quoting prices for GBP/EUR at present, it doesn't seem to start till 12:00 or so. I'll have another go then.

 

[GreyingSurfer]

Brilliant it worked!

Thanks 1/2