Electronic trading major Interactive Brokers continues to expand the capabilities of its TWS platform.

The broker introduces its Tax Loss Harvest tool. Advisors can use this tool to realize the tax benefits of both long- and short-term capital losses more easily.

To open the tool, right-click a position and select Tax Loss Harvest.

From within the tool elect to close losing or other positions, and replace losing positions with the asset of your choice.

Use the Allocation and Portfolio Segment drop-down to filter positions by group and segment. If you are not planning on replacing losing positions with another asset, you can use the All/All filters to harvest losses across all groups and all segments.

In the Harvest Losses panel use the “Sell % of losing positions” to specify the portion of losing position(s) you want to harvest. Be sure to “Apply” your changes.

Optionally check “Replace with” and click Find replacement. Select an instrument open a new position in place of the closed position (or percentage of closed position). Note that you must select a model, a custom index, or “independent” from Portfolio Segment to use the replace feature. When you click Create TLH Order, the order panel will display the sell order on the original asset and the buy order of the replacement asset.

Once positions have been selected for harvesting, use the Filter Accounts section to further filter accounts that will participate in the harvest by a projected loss threshold.

When all criteria have been defined and applied, the Orders section will populate. The Total row at the top of the orders table shows the position before and after the transaction, the projected loss, and the projected total cash quantity (based on user-editable reference price).

To harvest losses, click Create TLH Orders. Use the submit button from the order row to transmit these orders.

Currently the Tax Loss Harvest tool only supports selling of long positions. Accounts that include both long and short positions are not eligible for Tax Loss Harvesting.

Interactive Brokers regularly updates its TWS platform. For instance, the 3D Volatility Viewer, which allows you to view implied volatility for an instrument, has been integrated into TWS so you can view 3D implied volatility directly within TWS, rather than within a separate tab of your browser.

The integrated 3D Volatility Viewer is available from Mosaic by selecting New Window>Option Analysis>Interactive Analytics>3D Volatility Surface. You can also access from within the Implied Volatility Viewer by clicking “3D” in the top right corner of the Implied Volatility tool.