Interactive Brokers streamlines group allocations for FAs in TWS platform
Interactive Brokers keeps beefing up the capabilities of its TWS platform. The newest (beta) version of the solution streamlines group allocations for financial advisors.
The two original allocation configurations, Account Groups and Allocation Profiles, have been merged into a single process under Groups. Clients who previously defined Allocation Profiles will see them listed in the Groups tab of the Advisor Setup page, identified by the same profile name and allocation method. Additionally, the allocation profile methods are still supported when creating new Groups by selecting “User-Specified” from the Create Group Method drop-down, and then using the drop-down on Contracts/Shares to choose a method.
Also, the available Group methods no longer include the Percent Change method as a selection, but this method can be used to calculate the order quantity when the Group includes positions in the selected instrument. In this circumstance, the Quantity field will show a “% Change” section where you can choose the percent by which you want to increase or decrease positions. Once calculated, the Quantity field will display the percent with either Ind or POS.
For example, if you use the Size Wand (click in the Quantity field) to select 50%:
- If the group comprises all Independent positions (none are in a Model Portfolio) and the total of all positions is 600, the Quantity display will read: 50% POS. Hold your mouse over the quantity to see the actual order size – in this case 300 shares.
- If the group includes positions totaling 600 but 200 are part of a Model, the Quantity calculation will only use the Independent positions and the Quantity display will read: 50% Ind. Hold your mouse over the quantity to see the actual order size – in this case 200 shares.
Let’s note that the latest (beta) version of the TWS platform is also offering improved news and research in order to make it easier for traders to find the content they really want to read.
Traders can use the Advanced Search to open the new News Reader. They can search by topic, symbol, or keyword or any combination of these, and use conditions (and) (or) (not) for more precise results. Also, they can save their search for future viewing, and add their saved search as a Mosaic news tab.
Furthermore, traders can use the updated News Configuration section in Global Configuration to further filter their saved searches on symbols, topics & keywords, article types, news providers, and language.
In addition, users of the platform can configure a custom “Research” tab using a saved search that’s filtered by the topics and research providers they prefer.