Your first trade

Say you expect SPX to stay between 7,440 and 7,730 until September 23. This walk-through takes you from an empty workspace to a working order in TWS and a trade in your journal. You need Tented connected (the title bar chip reads IB, see Connect to Interactive Brokers) and a trading account (setup wizard). Prices here come from the demo session, SPX near 7,620 on Wednesday, September 16; yours will differ.

Use a paper account for your first order

Send and Save & send place a real order at Interactive Brokers. To practise, log in to a TWS or IB Gateway paper account and connect to port 7497 or 4002. With Transmit unticked, the order waits in TWS and nothing is live until you transmit it there.

1. Title bar → Workspaces (⌘2). Add a workspace with + after the tabs (or ⌘T), pick the Chain layout, click the symbol button, type SPX and press Enter.
2. Open the expiration dropdown and choose Sep 23. The default Matrix view lists calls on the left, the strike in the middle and puts on the right.

3. Add the four legs by clicking prices: the Ask of the 7440 put (buy), the Bid of the 7490 put (sell), the Bid of the 7680 call (sell) and the Ask of the 7730 call (buy). An Ask click buys one more contract, a Bid click sells one more, and the other side of the same strike takes one back. Each leg lands in a scenario in the Trade builder below the chain, where you can edit its Buy/Sell, quantity, expiration or strike.

4. Read the risk graph. The strip above it shows Max P and Max L (for this condor, 50 points times 100 minus the credit), Credit or Debit at current mids in option points, PoP and net Δ Γ Θ V. A high PoP on a condor usually goes with a small credit and a large max loss; read it beside Max L. See Risk graph and Probability of profit.

5. In the scenario’s footer, click Commit. In the Commit trade · SPX dialog choose the Account, leave Trade ID on Start new trade, name the trade and choose the IB account. Read Max loss, Max profit, IB margin change and Commission. Set the Net price (near the mid is a fair start; closer to the bid fills faster), Lots (1) and Transmit, then click Save & send. The caret also offers Save (journal only) and Send (IB order only).

6. Title bar → Trades (⌘1). The new trade is a card flagged Working order, and the status bar shows 1 working order (or order waiting in TWS if Transmit was off).

7. When IB fills the order, a Fill detected card appears with this trade preselected as its Target. Click Update trade to correct the journal entry with the broker’s prices and commissions.

Go deeper: Place an order, Working orders, Trades view. Desk can model the same trade but never sends an order (What is Desk?). If a step does not work, see Clicking the chain adds no legs, Commit or Send is disabled and The risk graph is empty or still loading.