Best Thread Interactive Brokers

[timsk]

Most IB users use different charting. I use Sierra Chart with IB data as the feed.

I'm not saying who I use, it's a secret.
:cheesy:

 

[Hittfeld]

IB Account protection

Being a happy IB customer I am a bit disturbed by a posting on the US MF MI board ( Message 208220 ).

In this post SIPC mentions that IB customers are covered only with regards of Iinteractive Brokers LLC Greenwich (USA) NOT Interactive Brokers (UK).

>
SIPC would caution you that only Interactive Brokers LLC located in Greenwich, CT, is a member of SIPC. There are various other entities throughout the world known as Interactive Brokers that are not members of SIPC such as Interactive Brokers (UK) and Interactive Brokers (Australia).
>

As per IB's website there is an additional coverage of 29,5 Mio per accnt ---- but up to a total of 159 mio USD altogether. Is this correct???

Any IB rep to clarify please, if I am wrong --- just delete the thread!

Regards

Hittfeld

 

[Trader333]

I suggest you ask this on the IB thread as they regularly look at it and reply


Paul

 

[Interactive Brokers]

Our parent company Interactive Brokers LLC is a member of SIPC, in the US.

Our parent company holds our clients funds even though you are a client of Interactive Brokers UK Limited.

Interactive Brokers parent company and Interactive Brokers UK Limited is authorized and regulated by the FSA.

SIPC in the US offers more protection than in the UK i.e., absolute value per account.

IB customer accounts are kept in segregated accounts that are separate from the proprietary assets of IB and are set aside and titled exclusively for the benefit of IB customers.

We have always believed in limiting our business to stocks, options and futures that trade on exchanges or are cleared by a central clearinghouse like The Options Clearing Corporation or the CME Clearing House. Exchange-traded and/or centrally cleared products have certain characteristics that make them inherently less vulnerable to credit risk.

In addition to segregating customer assets, providing SIPC coverage (and excess SIPC coverage from Lloyd’s of London insurers), maintaining a strong balance sheet and avoiding risky businesses like OTC derivatives, swaps, CDOs and mortgage-backed securities, IB has built state-of-the-art risk management procedures and systems that are based on real-time market data and marking-to-market of customer positions.

Being a happy IB customer I am a bit disturbed by a posting on the US MF MI board ( Message 208220 ).

In this post SIPC mentions that IB customers are covered only with regards of Iinteractive Brokers LLC Greenwich (USA) NOT Interactive Brokers (UK).

>
SIPC would caution you that only Interactive Brokers LLC located in Greenwich, CT, is a member of SIPC. There are various other entities throughout the world known as Interactive Brokers that are not members of SIPC such as Interactive Brokers (UK) and Interactive Brokers (Australia).
>

As per IB's website there is an additional coverage of 29,5 Mio per accnt ---- but up to a total of 159 mio USD altogether. Is this correct???

Any IB rep to clarify please, if I am wrong --- just delete the thread!

Regards

Hittfeld

 

[southP]

Price Spikes

Nasdaq:
Does anyone know what causes the charts from tws to display price spikes (too many to be just line breaks), these spikes are completely absent on charts from other vendors.
Also they do not appear in the time and sales listings for the chart.?

You should check that the market your trading with IB is direct market access. If the last sale price tick and volume data differs from the exchange data then you most certainly are not trading direct market access. Bloombergs, Reuters and eSignal data all comes direct from the market. This checking for DMA should be the first very first step is assessing a market to trade.

 

[Interactive Brokers]

You should check that the market your trading with IB is direct market access. If the last sale price tick and volume data differs from the exchange data then you most certainly are not trading direct market access. Bloombergs, Reuters and eSignal data all comes direct from the market. This checking for DMA should be the first very first step is assessing a market to trade.

For your reference:

Interactive Brokers only offers Direct Market Access to over 70 global exchanges; i.e., exclusive of forex where we get the prices from large prime forex brokers.

We support regulated products and not OTC products e.g., CFD's. Because we are very risk adverse. Hence for regulated products the exchanges clearing houses minimize the counter party risk as they are the counterparty for the trades on the exchange. Unlike OTC products e.g., CFD's where the counter party is the broker or a third party.

Our clients source for market data are the exchanges themselves i.e., not a third party.

We are unsure why a client is experiencing market spikes. Its up to the client to contact our helpdesk, provide them info so we can investigate.

 

[gilligullu]

Hello,

I have been trading with IB for the last few months. I am happy with the TWS. However, I am having problems with the stop loss order when I am trading with the Webtrader when I am away from home.

For example, I long the YM at 12613 today and set the stop at 12583. When it reached 12650, I modified the stop to 12630. However, when the YM went down, IB did not close my position at 12630, I waited about 5 mins, and it went down to 12620, so I modified my stop to 12615. However, that was not executed again and IB allowed it to go down to 12594 and nothing happened. In the end, I had to close the order by instructing a sell order at 12596.

So, from capping from profit, I have now made a loss. This is not the first time this has happened. It has costed me a large sum of money. I only ever use the webtrader when I do not have access to TWS or not able to constantly watch the market. However, I feel that IB has failed to execute simple instructions and have caused me a lot of damage. I was not able to open another long position at around 12600, as I was so fustrated about this incident and have missed out.

I would very much like an answer to the cause of this error and what IB plans to resolve it.

Thanks.

 

[firewalker99]

Hello,

I have been trading with IB for the last few months. I am happy with the TWS. However, I am having problems with the stop loss order when I am trading with the Webtrader when I am away from home.

For example, I long the YM at 12613 today and set the stop at 12583. When it reached 12650, I modified the stop to 12630. However, when the YM went down, IB did not close my position at 12630, I waited about 5 mins, and it went down to 12620, so I modified my stop to 12615. However, that was not executed again and IB allowed it to go down to 12594 and nothing happened. In the end, I had to close the order by instructing a sell order at 12596.

So, from capping from profit, I have now made a loss. This is not the first time this has happened. It has costed me a large sum of money. I only ever use the webtrader when I do not have access to TWS or not able to constantly watch the market. However, I feel that IB has failed to execute simple instructions and have caused me a lot of damage. I was not able to open another long position at around 12600, as I was so fustrated about this incident and have missed out.

I would very much like an answer to the cause of this error and what IB plans to resolve it.

Thanks.

When did you open your long position? If it was before the markets opened, than check if you allowed orders to be filled outside of regular trading hours. If not, then stops won't be triggered.

 

[gilligullu]

When did you open your long position? If it was before the markets opened, than check if you allowed orders to be filled outside of regular trading hours. If not, then stops won't be triggered.

Dear Firewalker99,

Thank you very much for your advice. I did open my position at about 7am, I did not realise I have to allow orders to be filled outside regular hours. Can you please advice where I can check that?

However, I did modify my stop order after the market opened and it was still not executed.

Thank you very much for your comment, I hope I can get this revoled as soon as possible as this does not only lead to potential large losses, but it also means I will not be able to trade efficiently.

 

[firewalker99]

Dear Firewalker99,

Thank you very much for your advice. I did open my position at about 7am, I did not realise I have to allow orders to be filled outside regular hours. Can you please advice where I can check that?

However, I did modify my stop order after the market opened and it was still not executed.

Thank you very much for your comment, I hope I can get this revoled as soon as possible as this does not only lead to potential large losses, but it also means I will not be able to trade efficiently.

You're welcome. You can change the order settings through menu Configure > Order > General > Order defaults. There you must check the "allow order to be activated, triggered, or filled outside of regular trading hours". I believe that should solve the issue.

 

[Interactive Brokers]

Hello,

I have been trading with IB for the last few months. I am happy with the TWS. However, I am having problems with the stop loss order when I am trading with the Webtrader when I am away from home.

For example, I long the YM at 12613 today and set the stop at 12583. When it reached 12650, I modified the stop to 12630. However, when the YM went down, IB did not close my position at 12630, I waited about 5 mins, and it went down to 12620, so I modified my stop to 12615. However, that was not executed again and IB allowed it to go down to 12594 and nothing happened. In the end, I had to close the order by instructing a sell order at 12596.

So, from capping from profit, I have now made a loss. This is not the first time this has happened. It has costed me a large sum of money. I only ever use the webtrader when I do not have access to TWS or not able to constantly watch the market. However, I feel that IB has failed to execute simple instructions and have caused me a lot of damage. I was not able to open another long position at around 12600, as I was so fustrated about this incident and have missed out.

I would very much like an answer to the cause of this error and what IB plans to resolve it.

Thanks.

Dear Sir or Madam

You need to contact the helpdesk and provide us your account id, date/time of the problem and other particulars so we can investigate.

 

[southP]

IB Stop Not Processed

Hello,

I have been trading with IB for the last few months. I am happy with the TWS. However, I am having problems with the stop loss order when I am trading with the Webtrader when I am away from home.

For example, I long the YM at 12613 today and set the stop at 12583. When it reached 12650, I modified the stop to 12630. However, when the YM went down, IB did not close my position at 12630, I waited about 5 mins, and it went down to 12620, so I modified my stop to 12615. However, that was not executed again and IB allowed it to go down to 12594 and nothing happened. In the end, I had to close the order by instructing a sell order at 12596.

So, from capping from profit, I have now made a loss. This is not the first time this has happened. It has costed me a large sum of money. I only ever use the webtrader when I do not have access to TWS or not able to constantly watch the market. However, I feel that IB has failed to execute simple instructions and have caused me a lot of damage. I was not able to open another long position at around 12600, as I was so fustrated about this incident and have missed out.

I would very much like an answer to the cause of this error and what IB plans to resolve it.

Thanks.

You should check immediately check your Audit Trail to see if the order was submitted. Go to the View Menu select "View Audit Trail" search for the day and time of order placement and particularly note the time of "Place Order", the "Order Type", time of "Acknowledged" and time "Filled" (in your case it didn't get filled). Then go to the "Time and Sales Report", right click on the instrument data row and select "Analysis", then select "Time and Sales" and check the price and time of all transactions before and after your stop. If your stop order was acknowledged and the order type was STP (not LMT or STP LMT) and the market moved through your stop and was not filled then you must notify IB. If your order was not "Submitted" you probably failed to submit it correctly. Preferably by sending an email with screen dump files of these relevant reports ie the Audit Trail and the Time and Sales Report. To screen dump these reports press Cntrl and Print Scrn, open Paint (Start, All Programs, Accessories, Paint) press Cntrl V and save the file as .GIF and attach to your email. They may honour your order if it is their mistake and not yours.

 

[cando22]

margin requirements

HI ALL,

Im hoping someone could help answer this questions for me,

1. how much margin would i require in a standard margin account to trade 2000 shares
of IBM both long and short and sometimes held overnight.

2. Is there more risk in using a limit order instead of a market order for a stop loss.

Im very greatfull for any advice,
Thanks.

 

[Trader333]

As IBM is trading close to $120 then you will be able to get margin at 4 to 1 so to trade 2000 shares is equal to (2000 x 120) / 4 = 60,000 so you will probably need around $60K in your account to do this.

You could try a spreadbetting company where the requirement will be substantially less.

I do not understand what you are asking in your second question ?


Paul

 

[cando22]

HI paul, thanks for the advice,

ive been spread betting for the last four years.ive been on the receiving end of a lot of their colourful practices over that time and tbh have had my fill of them.
Id rather stump up the margin with IB than have to deal with the mad cost and carry on with the spreadbetting companys.

After costs and TAX im still better off with IB.

would 60,000 cover overnight margin on the above, thanks

 

[kensfishbar1]

Writing Option in IB

Hi,

Anyone has written UK share option in IB?

For example, if I have 3000 HSBC shares, what cost/commission to write 3 cover call contract on HSBC (my understanding is 1000 shares in one option contract?

If anyone has a real example, it will be very helpful.

Many thanks.

 

[gilligullu]

This may sound very stupid. But when you close out a trade using the close button, shouldn't the stop on the trade be automatically cancelled? However, I opened a new trade short at 12331 on DOW. IB closed it out at 12340, which is the stop for my previous order. It is now 12301. I have missed out on 30 points.

It is stupid things like this, that I have been losing money on. It will be great if someone could help me out. Thanks.

 

[firewalker99]

This may sound very stupid. But when you close out a trade using the close button, shouldn't the stop on the trade be automatically cancelled? However, I opened a new trade short at 12331 on DOW. IB closed it out at 12340, which is the stop for my previous order. It is now 12301. I have missed out on 30 points.

It is stupid things like this, that I have been losing money on. It will be great if someone could help me out. Thanks.

Try using OCA orders: one cancels all. That way, if the target (limit order) is executed,the stop as well and vice versa.

 

[gilligullu]

Try using OCA orders: one cancels all. That way, if the target (limit order) is executed,the stop as well and vice versa.

Sorry, but how do I do this? So it was my fault that the stop for the previous trade was not cancelled? Even thou I used the close button for the order? I am getting so sick of losing money cos of silly things like this.....

Sorry for moaning... Thanks FW.

 

[firewalker99]

Sorry, but how do I do this? So it was my fault that the stop for the previous trade was not cancelled? Even thou I used the close button for the order? I am getting so sick of losing money cos of silly things like this.....

Sorry for moaning... Thanks FW.

You can experiment in the papertrading platform, that way you can get a good handle of the functions without making costly mistakes.

Best to check out the TWS User's Guide page 229.