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Hi, Sorry I should have followed up on this thread too. (I think) I figured it out and replied on the other thread about it that is linked in my OP. Essentially, we borrow USD every time we trade if we don't have enough USD in our account, but the exchange rate has nothing to do with it (At least it is the explanation I got from the IB chat support). Let's say you borrow $100US to buy a stock, and if you win the trade and get $110, then now you have $10US in your account. We borrow $100 in USD, you give back $100 to IB in USD, and have $10 extra. If you lose and sold the stock at $90, now you have negative -$10 USD in your account. There will be interest for this (negative amount - the same as credit or line of credit etc.). You could convert the negative amount of USD from your CAD easily. You could also convert entire CAD to USD but it is not really necessary and actually this would be more risky because of the exchange rate if your base is Canada and your goal is to have more CAD in the end. What seemed to have been an issue with the other thread is that your asset in USD (and it shows in USD in your statements if your base currency is USD) fluctuates depending on the exchange rate. Let's say you have $1,000 CAD in your account and it is about $750USD. If the CAD drops a lot against USD then it might become $730USD by the end of the day. In this case, even if you make $10USD, your statement in USD will be less than where you started (drops from $750 to $740USD). But what you have in CAD would actually be growing ($1,000 CAD plus $10USD equivalent in this case). At least this is my understanding. Anyone please correct me if I am wrong.

I chatted with an IB representative who was very helpful. In short, it seems like there is nothing to worried about when it comes to the exchange rate. I don't think you have to convert everything to USD (or deposit in USD) either. Here is an example. If I have $1,000 CAD and $0 USD and I want to buy a $100 stock, then I am borrowing $100USD from IB. At this point, I have -$100 balance in USD. If I have a winning trade and now I sell the stock at $120, then I have a $20 profit. My USD account balance now will be $20. If I lose and sell the stock at $80, then now I have -$20 balance in USD. For -$20, I will have to pay some interest to IB or you can convert the amount from your CAD balance. As you can see, there is no place for the exchange rate to come in because I would be simply trading in borrowed USD, not CAD that is converted to USD. However, the exchange rate changes every day and when it comes to the total balance shown in USD it changes every day even if you don't trade at all. With the $1,000 CAD scenario, if the USD/CAD exchange rate is 0.8, then your balance in USD is $800, but if the rate drops to 0.78, then the balance will be $780. You would still have $1,000 Canadian. If the CAD value drops significantly, then the total value of your balance in USD drops significantly too and even if you win some trades (in USD), you may have less USD equivalent (as your base currency) at the end of the day than when you started trading in the morning. I think it is what happened to the OP. But I believe you would still have your original CAD balance in your account (plus the positive USD won in the trades).

Yes, you need and active montage before placing any trade. You can use that script as follows: Name: select activate montage trading window Key: END Command(s): SwitchTWnd if you are using Andrew's hotkey file, it should already be there (End:select activate montage trading window:SwitchTWnd) Test how it works when using multiple montages.

The video player issue is probably flash/plugin related. It works for me on both mobile and desktop browsers. What I mean by initial losses is that you need some USD as a cushion. Since trades on US stocks are automatically settled in USD at the end of day, you may end up in a situation where you have a negative USD balance due to losses and commissions. I believe that you will be charged interest on this negative balance. To remedy the negative balance, you will need to convert some EUR to USD. So rather than deal with that ad-hoc, I just converted a small portion to USD ahead of time. And thankfully I did--I've been in the red consistently since going live! Hope that makes sense.

I opened an account with IB Canada (separate entity), and here is what I have been doing to trade US stocks: 1. Funded account in Canadian dollars (CAD) 2. Set base currency to USD in Account Management (only for display and reporting purposes) 3. Converted a small amount of CAD to USD to cover initial losses. This video tutorial was very helpful 4. Each day, my Buying Power in IB/DAS is converted from CAD to equivalent USD 5. I day trade only US stocks and close out all positions at end of day 6. I stay well below my BP--again, calculated in USD in DAS 7. Profits and losses are settled in USD automatically 8. Commissions are deducted from USD balance 9. USD balance increases/declines with profit/loss at the end of each day Note that the majority of my equity used for buying power and margin is still in CAD (+90%). When I am profitable, I plan on converting the USD gains to CAD on a monthly--maybe even weekly--basis. This way I am not exposed to long-term currency risk. Not sure if any of the above is helpful at all, but I've documented it here for future reference. Best of luck!