Managing a portfolio

Yes. You need to be a Registered Investment Advisor ("RIA") in order to manage a portfolio on our marketplace.

Read through the details given here and contact our Manager Relations team. Once you submit the form, our Manager Relations team will contact you to determine whether you are a fit for the Interactive Advisors platform. We generally require Portfolio Managers to meet certain minimum criteria (such as AUM and proportion of personal funds invested in the strategy) and to certify that they will not trade ahead of Interactive Advisors clients in the other accounts they manage using the same strategy. We periodically confirm your registration status and obtain various compliance certifications from you, as provided in the Portfolio Manager License Agreement.

Interactive Advisors will ask you to complete our paperwork. Then you will be required to open and fund a brokerage account with Interactive Brokers LLC - our affiliated broker-dealer. That account will be used to track your trading. Afterwards, our Investment Management Team will follow your strategy for a two to four week live test or incubation period. The performance of your account during this incubation period will be displayed on the portfolio page if and when the portfolio becomes available to clients for investment. Our clients cannot invest in your portfolio during the live test period. Based on the realized risk metrics during the live test period, our Investment Management Team assigns a risk score to your portfolio. Only clients with a personal risk score equal to or higher than the portfolio risk score will be able to invest in your portfolio once launched. Our Investment Management Team periodically re-evaluates portfolio risk scores. You will also need to provide us with a write-up and general description of the strategy, which will be posted on the public portfolio page. You need to periodically (at least quarterly) review the general description of your strategy on our website and confirm that it is accurate and inform us of your intention to make material changes to the strategy at least 30 days before implementing such changes so that we may evaluate whether these changes and the portfolio risk score are appropriate.

You’ll need to fund your brokerage account with at least $1,000, and possibly more if your strategy requires it.

We do not impose limits on the amount of compensation you may earn on our platform but your compensation depends on the amount of assets our clients decide to invest in your portfolio. Portfolio Managers determine the annual management fee for the portfolios they offer on our marketplace after consulting with us. Management fees range from 0.08% to 0.75%. We retain just 0.25% of the management fee and pass the rest to the Portfolio Managers.

We promote portfolios via social media, our blog and newsletter. Portfolio Managers are encouraged to contribute content to our blog and may also promote their portfolios directly. Portfolio Managers wishing the promote the portfolios directly should carefully review our Communication and Marketing Guidelines and provide us with any proposed communications beforehand.

As an SEC-registered investment advisor, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our clients to ensure that we act in their best interests. Our trading rules seek to ensure that our clients are not unduly exposed to risky or unsuitable trades.

Yes. When managing a portfolio, your identity must be disclosed.

No. As a Portfolio Manager, you can choose to keep your holdings and trades hidden from all but logged-in clients and/or clients invested in your portfolio(s).

Interactive Advisors supports stock trading. We do not offer currency, futures or options trading.

Yes. Non-US citizens can manage portfolios as long as they can open a US-dollar-denominated brokerage account with Interactive Brokers LLC, and they are registered as an investment advisor in the US with either the Securities and Exchange Commission or one or more US state securities regulators and their jurisdiction does not prohibit us from opening an account for them. You will be able to establish positions only in US listed equities (including ADRs) and ETFs.

You have to open and fund a new brokerage account to manage a portfolio on Interactive Advisors marketplace. One of the core principles of Interactive Advisors is that the Portfolio Managers stand behind their strategies by having their own capital at risk, as do the clients who invest in those very same strategies.

To enable us to replicate trades in your brokerage account you must open a managed account with Interactive Brokers LLC and authorize us to trade in it on your behalf. Once you sign up for an account with us, we send you all information needed to open an Interactive Brokers LLC account linked to Interactive Advisors.

You can either fax the agreements to 1.857.453.4530 or email them to managerrelations@interactiveadvisors.com. For any questions, please contact our Manager Relations team.

Portfolio profiles and performance are updated prior to the market open each day. This allows us to apply corporate actions (dividends, stock splits etc.) and reconcile our records to those of Interactive Brokers LLC. If you have questions about performance information displayed on the portfolio page, please contact our Manager Relations team.

Contact us with all questions about your portfolio’s performance.

Benchmarks relevant to each portfolio are assigned by Interactive Advisors based on overall strategy, portfolio trade history, and/or other criteria as determined by Interactive Advisors.

Interactive Advisors rebalances all in-house portfolios (e.g., Smart Beta, Asset Allocation, and Index Tracker portfolios) on a quarterly basis. Portfolio Managers running the remaining portfolios may choose to rebalance their portfolios in accordance with their strategy, and the frequency of the rebalancing is usually discussed on the portfolio page.