The LSE Directory / Charting platforms
Trader Workstation (TWS) is the flagship desktop trading platform of Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR), a brokerage founded in 1978 by Thomas Peterffy and headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. First released in 1995, TWS provides order entry, portfolio and risk monitoring, and charting for stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds, funds, CFDs and cryptocurrency across roughly 160 markets in 36 countries and 28 currencies, all from one desktop application available for Windows, Mac and Linux. The platform targets active and professional traders rather than casual investors, and its depth of tooling is the main point of differentiation from simpler retail apps: more than 100 configurable order types and algorithms, including one-cancels-all, iceberg and bracket orders, plus real time market scanners and risk analytics. Users choose between two interfaces, Mosaic, a widget based layout introduced in 2012 that consolidates charts, order entry, watchlists and news into dockable panels, and Classic TWS, the original dense, spreadsheet style ticker grid still favored by many professional users for rapid multi symbol order entry. Its built in charting package includes more than 120 technical indicators, and a separate Advanced Charts module licensed from TradingView adds further drawing tools and trade from chart execution. Programmatic access is available through the TWS API, a REST based Web API, and FIX, making it a widely used backend for retail and semi professional automated trading systems. Interactive Brokers is publicly traded on Nasdaq under ticker IBKR and joined the S&P 500 in August 2025; founder Thomas Peterffy retains majority control through IBG Holdings LLC, with roughly 73.7 percent ownership. As of December 31, 2025, the firm served 4.40 million institutional and individual client accounts holding total client equity of $779.9 billion, and reported 2025 full year revenue of $6.205 billion and net income of $4.357 billion. The company operates offices in 24 cities across 16 countries, and more than half its client base is located outside the United States. In July 2025, Interactive Brokers launched version 1.0 of IBKR Desktop after roughly two years of beta development, a newer companion platform that packages TWS's core functionality with a more streamlined, discovery-and-research-oriented interface aimed at both new and experienced investors; a further update (version 1.2, adding one click instant order transmission) followed in October 2025. IBKR Desktop runs on the same backend infrastructure as TWS, IBKR Mobile, Client Portal and IBKR ForecastTrader, and IBKR has positioned it alongside rather than as a replacement for TWS, which remains the firm's platform for its most active and professional traders.
