Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Interactive Brokers

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Strident said:
Have a bit of a problem...

A long time ago when I was less older and less wiser I read some advice on the forum about using IB to buy small parcels to play SPPs and the like.

IB didn't really work out for me, so I stopped using it but now I get hit with the minimum fee every month. I wanted to close the account, but:

- Can't close the account with open stock positions,
- I'm not allowed to transfer the small parcels out because they aren't marketable,
- Selling $1 of stock is going to cost more than they are worth.

What do? Must I sell all the parcels in IB to close the account? Can I give them away to someone? Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

Best check with IB (perhaps donating the whole account to charity is possible?!) but in lieu of giving them away, you can calculate the optimum number of parcels to sell per month to avoid the monthly fees. This will be your least cost option... although it may take you some time to complete.
 
What did they say when you filled out a complaint ticket?

I always try this first for any problems but for your interest I can put them on here...

I have 2 IB a/c, one a company and the other an individual [now you can earn up to $20000 tax free] problems logging into both simultaneously
 
so when will IB get the CHESS holdings issue resolved? I really want the right to participate the Share Purchase Plans
 
Hi,

I would like to know if there is a way to display indicative prices during the opening and closing auctions for Australian stocks.

I've found that there is a column on TWS which you can insert called "Auction Price" but this does not populate during the opening or closing auctions.

I've found it to be crucial if you're trading on smaller stocks as whether the stock opens at 29c or 29.5c can be the whole reason for your trade, and so I'd like to have this updating in real time. I have previously traded using First Prudential (used Web-iress) and Marketech and both of these had the feature. Even Comsec has it these days where it will display the indicative opening/closing price based on all the submitted buy and sell orders, but of course you need to refresh it.

Of course you can always see the prices in market depth updating in real time, but if there are many orders over multiple price levels it can be difficult to work out at a glance. Thus the requirement for a simple software tool to display what the average of those prices will be.

Anyone know if this is possible? Or have a way around it? An add-on tool to TWS for example? Or have I just missed the feature somewhere?

Also, figured I could throw it out there: often I see a computer operating during the opening/closing auctions (on small stocks), such that they want the stock to close at a certain price, and it will automatically adjust order sizes to be say '1 share' less than the bid or ask depending on where they are hoping to get the stock to close. I've never been able to find any details on how to get a copy of, buy, etc. one of these programs to work in with order entry in this way. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Baxter.
 
is there an IB rep out there at all?

If so could you give me your email address (or any email address of an actual person in Australia) so i can email you something of interest. Or PM me. Kind of urgent.

thanks
 
I did this transaction a long time ago with the help of IB chat and need to do it once more. I can't quite recall the correct procedure as it was so long ago and it wasn't obvious to me what to do. Could someone perhaps explain the rational for what choices are to be made.

My situation was then and is now that I have a positive balance in my base currency AUD, but a negative balance in USD. I want to convert some of the excess AUD to USD to pay off some of the negative balance.

I have a currency pair AUD.USD set up from the previous transaction, but I can't recall whether I should do a BUY or SELL. If I do a BUY, am I buying AUD or USD?. Ditto for SELL? What determines which is which?

If I were to set up USD.AUD as a currency pair (i.e. the other way round), is doing a BUY of AUD.USD the same as doing a SELL of USD.AUD and vice versa, and is there any advantage of one over the other?
 
thanks tech but the issue goes a bit higher than sorting out trade issues etc. I tried the helpline last week but it wasnt something they could sort out. needs to be sorted in USA but I am getting no response from them...
 
bellenuit,

i did same awhile ago but have also forgotten exactly. I think this was the procedure;

open the 'account' window, from the menu accross the top select 'currencies' and 'close all non-base currency balances' and take it from there. not sure how much use that would be for closing only part of it, you may get an opp to change the amount exchanged
 
village idiot said:
bellenuit,

i did same awhile ago but have also forgotten exactly. I think this was the procedure;

open the 'account' window, from the menu accross the top select 'currencies' and 'close all non-base currency balances' and take it from there. not sure how much use that would be for closing only part of it, you may get an opp to change the amount exchanged
Click to expand...

What I did previously was different from that. I just did a BUY or SELL on the same Trader Workstation screen that I use to trade shares, just using ticker AUD.USD

I think I have worked it out as I found a table of valid Currency.Currency combinations that IB seems to use. There are several AUD.xxx combinations, such as AUD.USD, AUD.CAD, AUD.NZD etc. and these are all classified as "Australian Dollar" trades, which implies that you are BUYing or SELLing Australian Dollars in each case, not the other currency. In other words, the currency before the "." is the currency being traded, that after the "." is the currency used to pay for the AUD for a BUY and the currency of the proceeds for a SELL of AUD.

I also noticed that even though there were many xxx.yyy combinations, there was no corresponding yyy.xxx for any particular pair. So there is a AUD.USD, but no USD.AUD. So to convert AUD to/from USD, you can only use AUD.USD and in my case I would be doing a SELL to sell AUD to obtain USD. If I were to do a BUY, I would be buying AUD with my USD.
 
bellenuit said:
I did this transaction a long time ago with the help of IB chat and need to do it once more. I can't quite recall the correct procedure as it was so long ago and it wasn't obvious to me what to do. Could someone perhaps explain the rational for what choices are to be made.

My situation was then and is now that I have a positive balance in my base currency AUD, but a negative balance in USD. I want to convert some of the excess AUD to USD to pay off some of the negative balance.

I have a currency pair AUD.USD set up from the previous transaction, but I can't recall whether I should do a BUY or SELL. If I do a BUY, am I buying AUD or USD?. Ditto for SELL? What determines which is which?

If I were to set up USD.AUD as a currency pair (i.e. the other way round), is doing a BUY of AUD.USD the same as doing a SELL of USD.AUD and vice versa, and is there any advantage of one over the other?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you have sorted it out yet but I came across a guide a while ago which explains it all & how to do it. It will be slightly different now as TWS has had some updates but it still works.

See attached.

View attachment IB FX Conversion Guide.pdf
 
Has anyone previously setup sms alert notifications through account management in IB?

They ask for a SMS address that is in the foramt of an email address as opposed to just a phone number. Dont really understand this?
 
I'm thinking of entering the opening auction on the ASX, using IB. Can someone just confirm that I will enter the auction if I put the Time In Force as Good Til Date, with the date set as 10:00:00, and submit well before 10? Or do you have to set the GTD to the staggered open time?

How about the close, just submit an order after 16:00:00, and before 16:10:00, with GTD as e.g. 16:20:00?

Are people still having trouble with IB setting a cap/floor near to the previous closing price? It looks as though you can turn this off. For the API it's in Configure->API->Precautions, and for the GUI it's Configure->Presets->Precautionary settings. However, if that's the case then it makes the IB message about the cap/floor look silly, because the message says that the exchange requires the cap/floor to be set...
 
Punta said:
I'm thinking of entering the opening auction on the ASX, using IB. Can someone just confirm that I will enter the auction if I put the Time In Force as Good Til Date, with the date set as 10:00:00, and submit well before 10? Or do you have to set the GTD to the staggered open time?

How about the close, just submit an order after 16:00:00, and before 16:10:00, with GTD as e.g. 16:20:00?

Are people still having trouble with IB setting a cap/floor near to the previous closing price? It looks as though you can turn this off. For the API it's in Configure->API->Precautions, and for the GUI it's Configure->Presets->Precautionary settings. However, if that's the case then it makes the IB message about the cap/floor look silly, because the message says that the exchange requires the cap/floor to be set...
Click to expand...

I seirously doubt that a GTD 10:00:00 order will get filled with the staggered open at 10:02:15 etc. The closing auction order being submitted at 16:00:00 should work.

The cap/floor are still there as far as I am aware - but I don't use API.

Best to check with a rep or use the simulator.

Punta said:
Also, if you enter the auction, but don't get filled, do IB still charge you 6 bucks?
Click to expand...

No charge unless there's a fill. Partial fills will also incur brokerage.
 
skc said:
I seirously doubt that a GTD 10:00:00 order will get filled with the staggered open at 10:02:15 etc. The closing auction order being submitted at 16:00:00 should work.

Best to check with a rep or use the simulator.

No charge unless there's a fill. Partial fills will also incur brokerage.
Click to expand...

Cheers. I'll have a play around with orders for a single share. I can imagine that you would have to put in the proper staggered open time for the GTD, but on the other hand, that time is randomised by +-15 sec, so not strictly possible.

Can't test this with the simulator unfortunately, because those orders are not submitted to the exchange.
 
I am looking at using IB to place limit order during the opening auction and have a couple, of hopefully simple questions:

1. From what metric does IB use to calculate the maximum acceptable for a limit order e.g. Does it use previous days close + 5% as the maximum acceptable for a limit order, or does it use the indicative auction price + 5%?

2. What % of the price does IB allow for the limit? i.e. is it a fixed 5%, 10%?

3. If you enter a limit order that is higher than the defined %, what happens to it? does it still get placed?
 

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