I have had some feedback that certain subscribers cannot get Interactive Brokers to allow them to trade GBTC, leveraged ETFs, or Options. If you are trying to trade any of my strategies that require these things, this is what you need to do.
Review the Requirements
Interactive Brokers publishes the required levels of net worth, experience, and income required to trade certain products. You can view these requirements here: https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=4945&p=tradingrequirements
Navigate to Settings then Account Settings
Scroll to Trading Permissions & Experience. Then click on the configure/gear icon.
For Leveraged ETFs You Must Scroll towards the bottom and select “Complex or Leveraged Exchange Traded Products.” Then you will have a little blue section added with the same title. You must have the markets in that box set to Global. If it does not say global you must click add.
For options I check the “Limited Options Trading” which means things like uncovered call writing isn’t allowed. In this one you must have United States as a market to follow my strategies.
For GBTC which is a Penny Stock/OTC you must go to the stock section and add United States Penny Stocks
If IB approves you for those trading permissions and you have the United States stock trading permissions already enabled you should have no trouble. If you do have trouble, please let me know. I always appreciate feedback.
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It also depends on your country.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/the-unforeseen-boost-to-europe-s-etfs-as-spy-no-longer-an-option
Since early 2018, the leveraged ETFs (eg. TQQQ) are not available for Europeans, at least on IB. If someone knows a way to trade those leveraged ETFs by a European citizen, please do post.
Great point! I have been wanting to create a European friendly version of my strategies for sometime now.
Are you able to trade things that are leveraged ETFs out of Europe? For example, can you trade this: https://www.wisdomtree.eu/en-gb/etps/equities/wisdomtree-sp-500-3x-daily-leveraged
The other question is can you trade options on ETFs like UPRO? If so I could make a version that uses options as a stock replacement. Or would it be easier for Europeans if I just made a futures version.
Can you confirm if Europeans are able to buy GBTC by enabling penny stocks?
If some Europeans are able to help me debug I am sure I can create a European friendly version of Patience is a Virtue
I can confirm GBTC is not a problem to trade and options on leveraged ETFs as well. And I believe wisdom leveraged etfs can be traded as well, but i have not tried to enable LSE trading permission on IB to try it.
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Thank you for that. I may eventually try and come up with an all European tradeable strategy and that is very helpful. I could really just use options for stock replacements and that should work quite nicely. However, if I could find ETF selections I think most subscribers prefer that because it is easier to scale.
