I started trading with real money on Interactive Brokers and it's going pretty well (considering my level of experience). I've done about 40 trades and from my AUD10000 I am down about $80. I usually trade in small lots, worth in total about $200 - $400
Yesterday I wanted to close all my trades quickly because the price was fluctuating a bit with a negative trend.
I was down about $17 on all trades (I had about 4 trades opened). One particular trade ended up much worse than expected. The price for the 15 min bar at the time was around $7.77 to $7.80. When I closed all trades, my 25 shares in KONE have sold for $7.5601 through a dark pool exchange. I inquired with IB about the reason my shares sold much lower than the price at the time. They told me I placed a limit order at $7.56 (which I am not aware of - all I know if that I had the 25 shares bought and no limit price set). As soon as I selected Close all trades, 100%, my P&L for the day instantly dropped from -$17 yo -$35.
I was expecting that the SMART trading system will close my trades at a price not (much) worse than the highest bid at the current time. And considering that the entire 15 min bar and the next bar never reached the price my shares were sold at, the question is how are IB doing the SMART trades? They said because I traded into a black pool, my sell price was not recorded. And the system tried to get a better price for me - instead of my limit order of $7.56, it got $7.5601
The question I have is - if I want to close my positions in a hurry (either reached a good profit or the loss is getting too large) - is there a way to close the trades without losing my shirt? The other trades that were closed at the time closed on other exchanges (ISLAND, DRCTEDGE, ARCA) and the price was inside the bars. I just had a look in my trading configuration and I had the Orders - Routing - do not route to dark pools unticked (I was allowing routing to dark pools). Now I ticked it, because it looks risky to trade into dark pools.
In the attachment below, you can see the red dash at 7.56 (at 11:26) and the actual price ranges for the 15 min bars at the time.
Nick
Yesterday I wanted to close all my trades quickly because the price was fluctuating a bit with a negative trend.
I was down about $17 on all trades (I had about 4 trades opened). One particular trade ended up much worse than expected. The price for the 15 min bar at the time was around $7.77 to $7.80. When I closed all trades, my 25 shares in KONE have sold for $7.5601 through a dark pool exchange. I inquired with IB about the reason my shares sold much lower than the price at the time. They told me I placed a limit order at $7.56 (which I am not aware of - all I know if that I had the 25 shares bought and no limit price set). As soon as I selected Close all trades, 100%, my P&L for the day instantly dropped from -$17 yo -$35.
I was expecting that the SMART trading system will close my trades at a price not (much) worse than the highest bid at the current time. And considering that the entire 15 min bar and the next bar never reached the price my shares were sold at, the question is how are IB doing the SMART trades? They said because I traded into a black pool, my sell price was not recorded. And the system tried to get a better price for me - instead of my limit order of $7.56, it got $7.5601
The question I have is - if I want to close my positions in a hurry (either reached a good profit or the loss is getting too large) - is there a way to close the trades without losing my shirt? The other trades that were closed at the time closed on other exchanges (ISLAND, DRCTEDGE, ARCA) and the price was inside the bars. I just had a look in my trading configuration and I had the Orders - Routing - do not route to dark pools unticked (I was allowing routing to dark pools). Now I ticked it, because it looks risky to trade into dark pools.
In the attachment below, you can see the red dash at 7.56 (at 11:26) and the actual price ranges for the 15 min bars at the time.
Nick
