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Interactive Brokers Troubleshooting

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Had a trade last week that gapped through my stop on the final clearence auction(STO) nothing apperaed so I expected all to be good albeit with a loss next morning.--Next morning the open gaps back up over my stop and still no execution. Anyway I turn a loss to a profit! Not happy all the same---only ever happened once and as its in my favor not un happy. To minimise slippage in most cases I place stops in places which are NOT technically obvious ---above technically obvious stop points. Has saved me heaps.


Yes I have mine.
Take a copy and put in a safe if you lose it its a big problem.
Greta security Idea by the way.
 
Here's my experience trying to transfer stock from MQ Prime to IB:

Fri 20 June request form via ticket
Fri 20 June receive reply with link to form, which I fill out and fax back
Mon 23 June around 5pm get a call from HK office, told that the form is not used anymore and new procedure is to supply the details via ticket, which I do (same day). Told it will take 5-10 working days.
Thurs 26 June Still no stock. Speak to IB in Sydney and told it actually takes 2-5 days. The wrong form is described as teething probs.
Mon 30 June. Still no stock. Speak to IB in Hong Kong who said that the form was delivered to Fortis on Thurs, and they will chase tomorrow Tues 1 July.

Lets say I'm unimpressed.
1) A wrong form is being used. I can appreciate some teething probs when setting up in another country, but IB have been here about a year now ....
2) No clear info on how long it takes. Retail brokers can usually do this in 1-2 days, I would think up to 4 days a reasonable standard for IB to aim for.
3) Even when I used the RIGHT procedure, it took 3 business days to get to Fortis (their agent in Australia).
 
I'm unable to logon to TWS. Anybody else having similar issues?

Also, their system status page doesn't load up for me.
 
In case anyone is interested, the stock transfer to IB took 13 working days.

The stock left the old broker at 3pm in the arvo and will appear on TWS around 2pm I'm told. So, I'm out of the market during the time. It would seem reasonable for IB to disclose this in advance .... significant customer losses may result from this state of affairs.

I like IB but will never transfer stock to / from them again.
 

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Hey Steve,

I was wondering if you could explain something to me about Bid volume Vs Ask volume data.

Firstly I use IB with Sierra charts, and analyse volume data collected live, not back-filled.

The question is - When I see a large block trade and somehow IB or sierra charts decides it is Ask volume, how does it come to this decision?

Especially if the large block trade had 450 contracts in it? (see below as an example - gold today.) Not all of these 450 contracts would have been purchased at the Ask price. I gather this pro would have collected his contracts over a few minutes or hours maybe, with a combination of limit and market orders. (due to low liquidity).

There is also a reaction straight after the spike appears - so it cant be something that only I am seeing.

Anyway, hopefully you can shed some light on the process that IB decides volume spikes (large block trades) are bid volume or ask volume.

Thankyou.
 

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Broadway that doesn't make much sense! Its Bid volume if it transacts at the bid and Ask if it transacts at the Ask. Simple

As for cross trades they are more likely to be contract roll overs rather than straight trades. Unless you see them actually hit the order book.
 
Thanks for answering TH.

I'll show another example, that couldn't be rollover volume.

This is the spi from a few days back, just before lunch.

What I see is 80 contracts transacted at the bid.

What I ask myself is can we say anything about this volume spike that can help us trade?

Is there a good possibility that this represents a professional that has picked up 80 short contracts? This would have been a great trade ofcourse, given the decline since the 24th.

If he entered an order saying - 'Sell 80 spi contracts at Market' - the price would have fallen, which it didnt. So he must have picked up his 80 shorts gradually over time, preceeding the spike. And if this is true, why doesnt his volume show gradually over the morning instead of all together in one spike.

Do spikes like these represent professionals making a bet or not? And if so, can we make assumptions about whether they were entering longs or shorts?

thx.
 

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are you sure these aren't just crossings?

it doesn't have to be just a contract rollover.. it could be a broker donig the deltas on an options crossing, a pre-arranged broker crossing for a managed fund, an efp trade (basket of shares vs futures). anything..
 

Broadway said:
Do spikes like these represent professionals making a bet or not? And if so, can we make assumptions about whether they were entering longs or shorts?

thx.
Click to expand...
No way. As rossw has pointed out they could be one of a hundred different things. Most likely not thou a straight directional bet.

And in any case if it was there was someone just as big on the other side. So what can you gain from that???? Nothing. Mostly() large volume should be faded.
 
Yea, I have to agree that they confuse me most of the time, but then occasionally, they can seem entirely predictive.

This is last night's sycom spi. Note spike around 9pm(sydney). With good result for the night. 90 points.

And this is oil at around same time - oil at 124.20. Went 2 dollars down after this.

Together, they look predictive for a good trade. ES rally 15 points after this.
 

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XJO Options

Is anyone trading ASX XJO options through IB (IB code AP)? Whilst the options are visible and can be traded from the TWS window, they do not show up in the OptionTrader application.

I received the somewhat silly response from IB Customer Service that OptionTrader probably only applies to US options - something I know to be incorrect since I have been using OptionTrader to trade non-US options for several years.

On another point, IB have decided my SMSF account is a "professional" for market data subscription pricing purposes (since it is a trust and therefore not a "natural person") thus exposing me to substantially higher data charges in that account. I will cancel data subscription from the SMSF account and rely on the data feed from my other account when trading - this means I will have to have two monitors running.
 
are you sure they're XJO options?

there are 2 types of index options in australia.. the XJO's and the AP's
XJO's are on the ASX and based on the XJO index
AP's are on the SFE and are based on the SPI

it was more of a difference when ASX and the SFE were not one company
(that's why there's LEPO's as well. so that you could hedge an ASX option with an ASX product rather than using the futures contract)



and yes, this is probably a little off topic and doesn't really answer your question.....
 
rossw,

Yes I'm sure they are the XJO options. I agree AP is the exchange symbol for the options on the SPI futures contract which are traded on SFE with a tick value of $25. IB's symbol for these is SPI and they are visible through the OptionTrader widow.

The XJO options traded on ASX have a tick value of $10. For some reason IB have given these a symbol of AP.

Perhaps that is part of the problem - anyway IB Customer Service say they have given the matter to their developers to look at but I was hoping Steve-IB might have some insight to speed things up.

The XJO options appear to now have much more liquidity than the SPI options but trading them is difficult if you can't see the full option chain.
 
In TWS tonight it says that TEL closed at $2.51 however i beleive it closed at $2.45. Can anyone explain to me why this is the case? I recall seeing inaccuracies on TWS previously also. Are they inaccuracies or am i missing something?
 
Hi guys,

I currently use AmiBroker with IB, but am finding TWS consistently out of sync with my system time, which causes a bit of drama with my charts.

When I contacted IB, they said that the time is retrieved from my system, not an IB server, and the lag is between the system and TWS.

What I'm experiencing is that with AmiBroker, I constantly have to reload the program so that I can get the correct data loaded, I understand that IB doesn't give the perfect feed, but is anyone else having this time lag issue?

Thanks
 
i have $50,000 in an account with ig for trading futures/forex/commodities. i am thinking of changing to IB, but i am interested in

a)if i trade with IB, am i actually trading the SPI contract or the AUD/USD spot, or is it similar to ig where they just make the market?

b) what are the transaction costs of trading 1 SPI december contract/audusd contract /gold contract and what is the usual spread?

c)does IB offer mini contracts similar to IG?

d)what is the funding rate charged? +-2% over RBA?

does everyone also recommend that IB is the best platform from which to trade US shares. if so, do they offer conditional orders (eg. buy GOOG if last price is lower or equel to 360 down to 350)

thanks for helping.
 
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