Create a What-If Portfolio

Create a What-If Portfolio in IB Risk NavigatorSM

The What-if portfolio feature lets you create an editable, hypothetical portfolio based on your actual portfolio. This allows you to see how your risk profile would change based on changes you make to your portfolio, such as adding, closing, reducing or increasing positions. Or build a new hypothetical portfolio, position-by-position to see how the risk profile changes as positions are added and modified. The What-if feature lets you drag new underlyings into the portfolio from your trading window to "take" a new position, and edit the position quantity for existing positions. You can also elect to open positions for some or all of the "what-if" contracts in your hypothetical portfolio. What-if portfolios are outlined in red for easy identification, and display the What-if title at the top of the window.

To create a "what-if" scenario based on your current portfolio

Open the IB Risk Navigator window and on the Portfolio menu, select New. A new, blank what-if window opens.
On the Edit menu, select Add From. Your current portfolio is the default list value, named My Portfolio.
Click OK to add your current portfolio to the What-if window.

This creates a copy of your portfolio. You can now drag in new contracts from your trading screen, and see the results of modifying your positions without actually making any changes.

To save a "what-if" portfolio

On the Portfolio menu select Save As.
Enter a file name and click Save.

To reload the last saved version

Use this command to reset all values in the active portfolio to the last saved version. This command only works on an unsaved file. An unsaved portfolio will display an asterisk "*" at the end of the title.

On the Edit menu select Reload from file.
Confirm that you want to reload the file and lose all of your unsaved changes by clicking Yes.

To add/subtract positions from other portfolio files

From the active portfolio, on the Edit menu select Add From or Subtract From.
Select a portfolio to add/subtract. The add/subtract selection list only displays names of portfolios that are currently open.

Click OK to add or subtract positions from the active portfolio.

The add/subtract feature nets out positions common to both portfolios, and creates a contract line for each new contract (even if the position is "0").
You can add/subtract the same portfolio multiple times. Current positions are netted out each time.

To open positions from a "what-if" scenario

Select one or multiple positions.
Using the right-click menu, select Add Position to open positions on the selected contracts, or Add Portfolio to open positions for all contracts in your what-if portfolio.