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Rebalancing Fails when Live Trading
Marcus Robinson
posted Nov 2, 2015

I'm trying to perform a monthly rebalance on my IB live-trading algorithm, but cash proceeds from selling US stocks take 3 business days for settlement with IB. This means I have to wait 3 days until the trade clears before I can use the sale proceeds, so my re-balance logic is failing, since there's no cash to buy stocks with immediately after selling my current holdings.

How are other people dealing with this problem? I'm based out of Australia, is this just an issue with people outside the US? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

4 responses
Luca
Nov 2, 2015

I guess you have a cash account. You have to open a margin account to avoid settlement period.

http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/814

Marcus Robinson
Nov 2, 2015

Thanks for the advice Luca. Do most people on here use a margin account for live trading? Seems like it must be the only type of viable account with the settlement limitations of a cash account.

Alisa Deychman
Nov 10, 2015

From what I've seen, majority of people have a margin account with IB. If you have a cash account, you'll need to do some order tracking in your code. Keep track of when the order was filled, create a variable to track 3 days, and then allow the algo to trade that capital amount.

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Marcus Robinson
Nov 10, 2015

Ok, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying Alisa.

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The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian.

In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.