Interactive Brokers TWS enables investing in Mutual Funds via Model Portfolios

Electronic trading major Interactive Brokers has released a new (beta) version of its TWS platform.

TWS Beta Version 10.14 offers support for Mutual Funds in Model Portfolios. Because Mutual Funds trade only once/day when the market closes, the number of shares and cash value update differently from other assets.

Traders can add funds to an existing model, or create a new model to invest in the fund. To add Mutual Funds to an existing model, in the Rebalance window use the Rebalance to Target feature. For a new model, use the Reallocation feature that you can open from the Portfolio page.

Note that due to the way in which Mutual Funds trade, updates to Position and Cash Value work differently. Because it takes time for MFs to execute as they only trade once per day after market close, when trades are submitted the market value is reduced by the amount of the order, because at that point there are no shares (position shows 0). Once the order executes and the position is updated, Market Value also updates to include the value of the shares.

Let’s note that the latest (production) version of the platform offers an enhanced Events Calendar.

The redesigned Events Calendar can help traders stay on top of current and upcoming economic and corporate events for companies around the globe. The latest addition – detailed IPO data from Renaissance Capital LLC – makes it easy to track upcoming US IPOs scheduled to start trading today, tomorrow, next week and beyond.

Traders can use filters to decide whether they want to see all upcoming IPOs, or only those related to companies in their portfolio and Watchlists. Select an IPO headline for a snapshot of valuable IPO data and insights from Renaissance Capital LLC including filed and trade date, IPO price, deal size, market cap at offer, shares offered, total shares and more.

To open the Events Calendar, use the Mosaic New Window drop down list or the Analytical Tools menu in Classic Layout. From the list of actions and events toggle on the IPOs feature. Use the Only Show My Companies toggle to set display filters. Select a date from the calendar to see that day’s scheduled IPOs.

The latest TWS production release (10.12) also enables Financial Advisors to help clients realize tax benefits of capital loss using the Allocation Order Tool. Preview potential losses on stocks, and pre-allocate lots for all or multiple accounts to harvest these capital losses.

To use this feature, select an asset with an expected loss, for example a long or short position with negative unrealized P&L, or a long or short position that has an average price higher/lower than the expected price to liquidate the position. Open the Allocation Order tool to see the list of accounts invested in the asset.