Interactive Brokers

[jrsween]

Hi all, I am wondering if anyone else had any problems with Interactive Brokers on September 19th? I am fighting over an IB outage where I could not close out my trades and IB is willing to give me a credit of about 9% of the error if I agree not to seek further compensation. Any advice?
Thanks
jrsween

 

[Adamus]

Is that their first offer? I wouldn't accept it. But then I've no idea what your rights are. The fact that they want you to sign an agreement not to seek further compensation is a bit of a give-away that they are afraid you will seek further compensation.

By the way, how did it happen?

 

[jrsween]

They offered me the same credit twice. I turned it down both times. The phone clerk told me it was a computer glitch and it took the programs an hour to fix when I called. I am meeting with my lawyer on Friday about sending a complaint to the NFA about it.

jrsween

 

[Adamus]

Good move. & Good luck. Would be interested to hear the outcome.

 

[twizzle]

I'm curious for a bit more details. Was this an outage where you could not connect (using their software, or via FIX or whatever API they provide) to close out your positions?

Do they admit the exact duration of the outage? Was it a complete outage - that is, customers (or at least you) were unable to connect? Or were you able to enter orders that were confirmed and went into black holes? I assume not the latter, in which case they would clearly be liable for the entire difference.

It's hard to say that they should be liable for the entire difference if you were totally unable to connect and had a position that lost value during that time window. Yet obviously they have a significant liability.

Was your loss due to bad luck combined with the outage, or was it a trading strategy that necessitated a quick out that was impossible due to the outage? The greater your ability to prove what orders you would have placed, the greater their liability now.

 

[jrsween]

I was using the IB software when this happened. It only effected the YM contracts as that day was a 900 point swing. I talked to the trading desk and they just said there was a problem and would not tell me any more. From what I can tell, it was the margin calculator that was the fault. I had live data, but the trades could not be processed because it could not determin the margin. I put in trades but none of them showed up at IB (Per IB) except the last one that was not filled.

jrsween