Student Trading Lab Account

Our Client Portal system serves as your one-stop destination to check quotes, see account balances, P&L and key performance metrics, reporting, and more. Send email invitations to your students to open a paper trading account. Look for "Trading Lab" option -> "Invite" and enter the email addresses in the field. Use the options in Client Portal to manage and monitor student accounts, perform account cash equity resets, and more. In addition, your students can use Client Portal to reset the equity in their account. This collection of resources helps professors enhance classroom content or use our sample assignments and resources to develop student trading skills.

How Student Trading Lab Accounts Work

  • You can use most order types, trade all instruments available through IBKR TWS our trading platform when you open your own sub (student) account, and experiment with almost every aspect of the platform.
  • The Paper Trader interface clearly indicates that you are working in a simulated account.
  • Trades entered into this paper trading account will not actually execute on any exchange or settle at a clearing house. However, the price of your executions will be determined by real market prices and sizes.
  • A paper trading account statement will be provided each day and is available by logging into Client Portal with your Paper Trading Account login and accessing the Reports menu.
  • All paper trading accounts start with USD 1,000,000 of paper trading Equity with Loan Value, and this equity will fluctuate as if the trades had executed in the real market.
  • You may reset the cash equity in your sub (student) account at any time in Client Portal. You can reset your paper trading cash equity to up to five times your production account value. Please note that reset requests should be entered before 16:00 ET in order to take effect for the next business day. Please close out all positions before equity reset.

Limitations

Although a Student Trading Lab Account simulates most aspects of a production account, you may encounter some differences due to its construction as a simulator with no execution or clearing abilities. These differences include but are not limited to:

  • No support for some order types including: VWAP, Auction, RFQ, and Pegged to Market.
  • Fills are simulated from the top of the book; no deep book access.
  • Limited combo trading.
  • Stops and other complex order types are always simulated in paper trading; this may result in slightly different behavior from a production account.
  • Penny trading for US Options is not supported. You will be able to submit the order but it will not receive a penny fill.
  • The trade simulator will reject the remainder of any exchange-directed market order that partially executes. This may or may not match behavior of a real-world exchange. Market orders received while there is no quote on the opposite side will be held until the market data arrives (i.e. until the first partial fill).
  • Mutual Fund trading is not supported in a Paper Trader Account.
  • Complex or Leveraged products are not available; including Gold, HKFE Hang Seng Index derivatives and CCMC securities.

How to create your own trading account 

  • Login to Client Portal, send an invitation to yourself and create your own sub-account.