SIMULATED TRADING UNDER REAL MARKET CONDITIONS WITH PAPERTRADING

The paper trading of your Trader Workstation works just like your regular account. You can use a large part of the Order types use, trade all contracts available via TWS and try out almost every conceivable function of the TWS platform in paper trading as well.

Trading permissions, market data subscriptions, base currency and other account configurations are identical to your regular account settings.

The PaperTrader account interface clearly indicates that you are operating in a simulated account. If you do not see such indications, you are acting in your real securities account, where you are liable for all transactions that come to execution.

Transactions you enter via the simulated paper trading account will not be executed in real terms on an exchange or settled at a clearing house. However, the prices for your (simulated) executions will be determined by the actual market prices and volumes, so you will achieve realistic results in paper trading.

You can reset your cash balance on the paper trading account at any time. To do so, log in to the account management (Client Portal) for your paper trading account and select the option >Reset paper trading account (Instruction).
You can change this amount, to a limited extent, via the account management (Client Portal) (login with the Papertrading user): A maximum of ten times the net liquidation value (NLV) of the associated account is possible. Alternatively, 250,000 USD or about 230,000 € can be selected for Papertrading at any time.
Example 1: A customer has €10,000 NLV on the securities account. He can therefore freely reset his Papertrading account with up to € 100,000 or a lump sum of € 230,000.
Example 2: A customer has € 250,000 NLV. So he can have up to 2,5 million € on the Papertrading account.

All clients start with a notional paper trading capital of $1,000,000 with collateral value. This capital changes in paper trading just as if your transactions were executed in the real market.

While the Papertrading account simulates almost all aspects of the productive version of a TWS account, you may notice some differences due to its design as a simulator without execution and clearing functions. Among others, the following differences exist:

• Certain order types are not supported, such as: Passive Relative, Auction, RFQ and Pegged-to-Market.
• Executions are simulated using the best price in the stock exchange book. There is no access to market depth quotes.
• The use of combo orders and EFP is also restricted.
• Stop orders and other complex order types are always simulated in paper trading. Due to this fact, slight deviations may occur compared to their behavior in a productive TWS account.
• Penny trading for US options is not supported. You can submit the order, but you will not receive a penny execution.
• The trading simulator rejects residual amounts of market orders routed specifically to exchanges that have only been partially executed. This may, but does not necessarily, correspond to the behavior in a real exchange environment. Market orders that are received while there is no quote on the opposite side are held until the corresponding market data is received (i.e. until the first partial execution).
• Trading with investment funds is not supported via IB PaperTrader.

A daily paper trading account statement is provided, which you can access by logging into the account management (Client Portal) with your PaperTrader credentials and opening the menu > Reports.