How can I limit any currency risk in my account?

The term Base Currency is used for accounting purposes to refer to the currency in which an investor maintains its book of accounts. For purposes of an IBKR account, each client will specify at the point of application a single Base Currency which will determine the currency of translation for statements and the currency used for determining margin requirements. While the Base Currency selected will typically be the principal form of currency in which the client intends to hold cash and the denomination of instruments which the client trades, clients are eligible to hold cash balances and trade instruments denominated in either a Base or non-Base Currency. If the client elects to maintain a cash account then they are restricted to holding only long cash balances regardless of the currency of denomination. …

Overview:

The Cash Report section details how each period's cash balance changes from beginning to end. If your account holds a long or short balance in a non-base currency, such balances will be translated (but not converted) into your base currency for statement reporting and account equity aggregation purposes. The rates at which these non-base balances have been converted are detailed in the Exchange Rates section located towards the bottom of your Daily Activity Statement. All other things being equal, any change in an exchange rate from one statement period to another will result in either an increase or decrease in your ending cash balance with the net change across all non-Base currencies being reflected in the Cash FX Translation Gain/Loss line. This does not reflect a realized gain or loss on these open currency positions but rather a mark-to-market calculation across statement periods…

The FX Portfolio - Virtual FX Positions section of the Account window is designed to show activity for currency pair trades for FX traders so that they can track average cost and running P&L on their currency trades.

• Since the "Position" value may reflect the sum of trades executed in the FX market along with currency conversions to change non-base funds into your base currency, these “virtual” positions do not necessarily reflect an actual cash balance in any currency…

You will need a Margin account in order to use an attached FX Hedge order. A Cash account cannot use a FX Hedge attached order because it takes IBKR a fraction of a second to see how much negative cash is in the account after the non-base currency stock order executes. Even though it would only be a short amount of time that the Cash account would be holding a negative cash balance, a loan to the account is not allowed under any circumstances. In a Cash account you will need to first execute a FX currency conversion order and then place an order for a contract denominated in a foreign currency. …