If you have IBKR (Interactive Brokers), now is the time to use it seriously. It is currently one of the few options for mainland users to smoothly buy US stocks.
Coincidentally, IBKR just opened an official connection interface with Claude in the past two days. I tested it immediately. I had tried unofficial methods before, but the data was delayed and I couldn't place orders directly; this time it's an official interface, and both problems are solved.
For this official collaboration, I will mainly talk about two directions: how to connect and how to use it after connecting. Let's start with the connection.
I. Connection Tutorial: Five Steps to Connect IBKR to Claude
Step 1: Open Claude and Enter Connectors
Open the Claude client (either desktop or web), click on the "Connectors" entry on the left or top, and then select "Add connector."
Step 2: Search and Find IBKR
Type "ibkr" in the search box, find the official connector, and click to enter.
Step 3: Log in to Your IBKR Account
Follow the on-screen instructions to log in to your Interactive Brokers account.
If you have two-factor authentication set up for IBKR, your mobile app will receive a push notification; just open it and confirm.
Step 4: Sign the Authorization Agreement and Select an Account
IBKR will pop up an API connection authorization notice; just sign and agree. Then you will be prompted to select the account you want to connect.
IBKR currently limits connection to only one account at a time.
Tip: IBKR supports holding two types of accounts simultaneously (such as margin and cash accounts). Currency exchange and stock purchase fees for cash accounts are usually cheaper, but Claude can only connect to one; I suggest connecting the main account directly.
Step 5: Return to Claude and Verify the Connection
After authorization is complete, the page will automatically jump back to the Claude client. If you find that the data is not loaded immediately, just restart the Claude client. After restarting, start a new conversation. If Claude can read your position data, the connection is successful.
II. What It Can Do: Three Core Scenarios
Scenario 1: Portfolio Overview
IBKR is indeed useful, but the mobile interface is not that user-friendly for mainland users; checking profits, losses, or monthly reports takes a lot of clicking. Claude can help you summarize this data into a clear overview, which is much more intuitive.
For example, you can say to Claude:
Help me check my current positions.
Claude will automatically read your IBKR account data and generate a visual position overview, including:
• Account net assets, buying power, and total unrealized P&L
• Market value percentage of each position (pie chart)
• Floating profit/loss and P&L ratio for each stock
Scenario 2: Portfolio Health Diagnosis
Just looking at numbers isn't enough; more importantly, "what should I do." You can ask Claude to diagnose your positions:
Help me analyze which of my current positions should be held, which should be considered for profit-taking, and which need a stop-loss.
Claude will combine your floating profit rate, holding period, and recent market trends to give specific suggestions for each stock, and remind you:
• Whether positions with high floating profits should lock in profits in batches
• Whether stocks with deep losses still have fundamental support
• Whether the overall portfolio is too concentrated in a certain sector
Holding stocks is always just floating profit; it only counts as profit when it's in your pocket. Having AI perform this "physical exam" regularly is much more effective than staring at numbers yourself.
Scenario 3: Direct Order Placement
This is the most critical and imaginative part.
When you enter a buy or sell command in Claude, it generates a structured trading instruction and pushes it to the "AI Instructions" tab in your IBKR mobile app. You open the app, see the push, review it, click confirm, and the trade is completed.
The security boundary of the entire process is reasonably designed: Claude can only generate instructions, not execute them automatically; the final "confirm button" is always in your hands.
III. How to Truly Use This Feature Well: Four Strategies
After using it for the first time, many people will feel: "What's the difference between this and operating in the app myself?"
The difference is not in "who pressed the button," but in the fact that AI compresses research, judgment, and execution—three things originally scattered across different tools—into the same conversation.
Here are four specific ways to use it, from simple to advanced, suitable for investors with different habits.
Strategy 1: Research and Execution Integration
The decision chain for traditional retail investors is: see news → open several web pages to check financial reports → hesitate → open the app to place an order. Three tools, with emotions and procrastination in between.
After connecting Claude, this chain can become one sentence:
Help me analyze Nvidia's recent financial report and analyst expectations. If the current price is reasonable, help me place an order to buy 2 shares.
Claude will retrieve the latest information in real-time, make a judgment, and directly generate an order instruction. You look at the reason and click confirm.
For most ordinary investors, what prevents them from making good decisions is not "not wanting to research," but "research is too troublesome, let's wait for now." AI lowers this threshold to near zero.
Practical Prompt Example:
Help me search for Meta's most recent quarterly earnings report, and combined with current valuation, judge if it's worth buying 1 share. If you think it's reasonable, please generate an order instruction.
Strategy 2: Event-Driven Trading
Many opportunities in the market have extremely short windows: the Fed announcing a rate cut, a company's earnings exceeding expectations, or major policies being introduced. Whether you can react immediately often directly affects costs.
Manual operation has a natural disadvantage: you can't stare at the news 24 hours a day. But you can tell Claude the rules in advance:
If the Fed announces a rate cut tonight, help me generate an order instruction to buy 3 shares of SPY.
If Apple's earnings EPS next week exceeds analyst expectations, help me generate a buy instruction the next day.
Claude can monitor relevant information and push instructions to your phone immediately when conditions are triggered. You don't need to watch the market; you just need to think through the rules beforehand and click confirm at the critical moment.
Note: Currently, Claude can perform event monitoring within a single conversation, but continuous monitoring across sessions requires coordination with Claude's scheduled task functions (see Strategy 3) or actively starting a new conversation before important events.
Strategy 3: Emotional Firewall
This is the most counter-intuitive but, in my opinion, the most valuable usage.
When the market crashes, people are most likely to make bad decisions, panic selling, or impulsive dip-buying. At these times, you "know it's wrong," but emotions override reason.
You can use this feature in reverse:
I want to liquidate all my positions now. First, help me analyze if this decision is reasonable. If you judge it to be emotion-driven rather than a rational judgment, directly refuse to generate the order instruction for me.
Set the AI as your "rational filter." When you are most impulsive, there is an extra hurdle where you need to explain yourself to the AI.
Many times, when you try to explain to Claude "why I should liquidate now," you will realize yourself that the reason doesn't hold water.
Strategy 4: Portfolio Rebalancing
The value of a single transaction is limited, but if you give the "entire portfolio" to Claude to look at, it can make higher-dimensional suggestions.
My current tech stock position accounts for over 75%. Help me analyze the overall risk exposure and suggest a rebalancing plan: what to sell, what to buy, and in what approximate proportions.
This becomes a portfolio adjustment plan. Claude helps you think through the logic, you review and confirm once, and execute in steps.
For investors holding multiple stocks, this kind of "portfolio-level" analysis is difficult to do regularly on your own; AI turns it into something that can be done at any time.
IV. Common Prompt Templates
Here are some dialogue templates that can be copied and used directly, covering the entire process from "market viewing → diagnosis → ordering."
View Portfolio Overview
Help me read the positions in my IBKR account and generate an overview, including: total account net value, market value percentage of each position, and the floating profit/loss rate of each stock.
Portfolio Health Diagnosis
Based on my current IBKR positions, analyze which stocks have high floating profits and can be considered for profit-taking, and which have continuous losses and are suggested for stop-loss. Give specific suggestions and reasons for each stock.
Single Stock Research + Ordering
Help me search for [Stock Name]'s recent financial reports and market performance, and judge if it's worth buying based on current valuation. If you think it's reasonable, generate an order instruction to buy [X] shares.
Event-Driven Ordering
[Company Name] is releasing earnings today. If EPS exceeds analyst expectations, help me generate an order instruction to buy [X] shares; if it falls short, remind me but do not place an order.
Portfolio Rebalancing
Help me analyze the sector concentration of my current positions. If tech stocks account for more than 60%, suggest which ones I should reduce and which defensive assets I should consider adding, giving specific proportional suggestions.
Emotional Check
I want to sell all my stocks. First, help me analyze the rationality of this decision from the perspectives of market conditions, my holding costs, and historical patterns, and tell me if this is a good time.
V. Conclusion
The feature of connecting IBKR to Claude is still in its very early stages. Many scenarios require you to explore and customize them yourself. With different position sizes and risk preferences, the usage will be very different.
But one thing I think is certain: the true value of this feature is not in "AI helping you press the button," but in the fact that it glues together research, judgment, and execution—three things that were originally separate—into the same conversation.
You retain the final right of confirmation, which is correct. The market always has uncertainties, and AI will also make wrong judgments. But on this basis, you have a "trading advisor" that can be called upon at any time, is emotionless, and can process a large amount of information.
For retail investors, this is a tool worth taking seriously.
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