Best Thread Interactive Brokers

IB has been hard at work ensuring that we continue to lead the industry in technological innovation. During the last few months we have added the following enhancements.

Introduction of Exchange for Physicals, an Industry First.

Interest expense and interest income offsets can be the largest component of your trading costs. An Exchange for Physical (EFP) trade allows the swap of a long or short stock position for a Single Stock Future (SSF). SSFs have an interest rate built into their price that is determined competitively by numerous market participants, rather than a single broker. EFPs can save you financing costs on your long positions, and increase the income earned on your short positions. IB makes it easy to compare interest saved and interest earned by displaying the EFP spread on an annualized basis net of dividends.

New Statements

We have been working to enhance your statements and have released daily "beta test" statements to Account Management/Report Management/Beta Statements with the following new features:

-Mark-to-market profit and loss across all asset classes
-Easy expansion and contraction of sections
-Links for easy access to additional details
-A new profit & loss performance section
-Opening and closing balances along with balance change details
-Addition of FX translation gain/loss due to currency fluctuations
-Sleeker look
-Over the next few months we will be working to enhance the following additional items:

-First in, first out realized and unrealized losses
-Simplified reporting of advisor/broker client transactions
-Year-to-date reporting as well as customized date ranges
-Position reporting of forex transactions
-Yearly and monthly statements that match our new daily statements
-Enhanced tax reporting

Our new "beta test" statements will run in parallel with our existing statements for a number of months, and we encourage you to send any feedback on the new statements during the test period to [email protected].

Lower Commissions for Japanese Futures

N225 Futures commissions have been lowered to JPY 150 per contract, JGB to JPY 750, and all other Japanese futures to JPY 500. Visit our Futures Product Page for more information on these products.

New CBOT E-Agriculture Futures Contracts

The CBOT recently introduced electronic agriculture futures contracts, and these products are now available for trading at IB. Trade oats, soybeans, wheat, corn, rough rice, and ethanol futures contracts for USD 3.05 per contract, bundled or unbundled, as specified on our site.

Trader Workstation Enhancements

-Chart enhancements including arithmetic and autofit, lets you combine and chart multiple contracts
-New stop trigger methods, including single last, double last, bid/ask, double bid/ask, last or bid/ask, and midpoint
-Specify an order type for the stock leg of a delta neutral order
-A new dividend column
-New soft edge margining colors which highlight when you are getting close to your trading limits
-Advisor allocations from the BookTrader
-Ability to add an execution price column to your order line
-Industry standard color coding for the SpreadTrader
-New hot-keys for auto stops, auto trailing stops, and contract specific buys or sells
-The ability to import contract descriptions from a txt file
-Color coding for in-the-money and out-of-the-money options
-Functionality to create multiple combination orders at the same time
-Single Stock Futures delta neutral orders
-Chart Fibonacci Trendlines, Accumulation/Distribution Lines, Chaikin Money Flow, and Money Flow Index indicators

PaperTrader Enhancements

The IB PaperTrader simulated trading environment has been enhanced to include European and Asian products as well as allowing for a new reset balance of USD 1 million. To open an IB Paper Trading account, visit Account Management/Trading Access/Paper Trading.

New WebTrader Interface

Our WebTrader, IB's HTML order management interface, has been completely revamped to allow easier monitoring of market data and execution of orders. We encourage those customers with firewall issues or that require a simpler trading interface to test drive our new WebTrader from our login menu at the top right corner of our website.

New Commercial Tool Partners

During the last few months, IB has added the following third-party Commercial Tools add-in partners:

-Inspired Trading Systems, Inc.
-Vbs Solutions Inc.
-Spooz, Inc.
-QMatix
-ATrade Investment Technologies, LLC
-FundCount
-Modulus Financial Engineering, Inc.
-Ward Systems Group Inc
-Beiley Software
-QuoteI

Please visit our new website for more details. Alternatively you can contact our London office tel 020 7 776 7800.
 
IB have introduced a poll for new features. If you are a customer just follow the link below and vote.

My personal recommendations of most important things they could do:

1035. Include all highs and lows with each data packet (without impacting the timeliness of IBs data).

1044. Include numbers of transactions in the backfill data so that tick charts will work properly with backfilled data as well as real time data.

1078. Hoi's Time&Sales for one bar in the TWS-chart is already possible, we would like to have it through the API as well

but there are plenty of others with merit as well. :)


http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/poll.php?ib_entity=llc
 
Basic Question on handling stops in TWS

For a person with a spread betting experience and moving over to the actual market trading, I have a very basic question on stop placement. I have tried to ask this question to IB but each time the reply has been a generic one straight out of the IB user handbook (maybe my question was not clear enough :confused: )

The question is-


eg- I go long on a share xyz @ $50- and lets say, I would like to have a stop initially at $49.8. Subsequently, if the price moves in my favour, I would like to move the stop to 50.01. If the price continues in my favour, I'd like to know as to how can I close my position. (for that matter can I close my position straight from the open position or do I need to put an order for an equal amount of shares for 'selling')

I would also like to know if it is possible for me to manually keep on changing the stop position as the price moves in my favour (trailing it manually).

Please can you let me know if these actions are possible to be done in the TWS) and as to how can these can be achieved?


Raj
 
rajibde said:
For a person with a spread betting experience and moving over to the actual market trading, I have a very basic question on stop placement. I have tried to ask this question to IB but each time the reply has been a generic one straight out of the IB user handbook (maybe my question was not clear enough :confused: )

The question is-


eg- I go long on a share xyz @ $50- and lets say, I would like to have a stop initially at $49.8. Subsequently, if the price moves in my favour, I would like to move the stop to 50.01. If the price continues in my favour, I'd like to know as to how can I close my position. (for that matter can I close my position straight from the open position or do I need to put an order for an equal amount of shares for 'selling')

I would also like to know if it is possible for me to manually keep on changing the stop position as the price moves in my favour (trailing it manually).

Please can you let me know if these actions are possible to be done in the TWS) and as to how can these can be achieved?


Raj
Click to expand...

You have 2 basic alternatives:

1)Place a sell order at 49.8 immediately after entering your position, making sure that you select "stop" as the order type
You can have both your buy and sell orders ready before entering the trade so you can fire them both off together

2) Instead of 1) above with stop, place a sell order and select "trail stop" as your order type and key in 0.2 in the amount column. Again have both orders ready prior to trade entry.

There may well be some slippage in getting your fill, depending on how the market is moving and it doesn't fill every time! If you can handle it psychologically, use mental stops, but you must honour them... on reflection, you're better off placing stops in the system.

Hope this helps.

If you've not got one already, get a dummy account so you can play around with the platform till you're comfortable with it.

And you can set TWS up so you can do adjustable stops... you need to select this option in the configure menu to enable the function.
 
Last edited:
jimmy1jag said:
You have 2 basic alternatives:

1)Place a sell order at 49.8 immediately after entering your position, making sure that you select "stop" as the order type
You can have both your buy and sell orders ready before entering the trade so you can fire them both off together

2) Instead of 1) above with stop, place a sell order and select "trail stop" as your order type and key in 0.2 in the amount column. Again have both orders ready prior to trade entry.

There may well be some slippage in getting your fill, depending on how the market is moving and it doesn't fill every time! If you can handle it psychologically, use mental stops, but you must honour them... on reflection, you're better off placing stops in the system.

Hope this helps.

If you've not got one already, get a dummy account so you can play around with the platform till you're comfortable with it.

And you can set TWS up so you can do adjustable stops... you need to select this option in the configure menu to enable the function.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jimmy for your reply- Presumably, the delta for the trailing stop cannot be changed once the order has gone through; adjustable stop seems to be the choice (I hope IB does not charge extra for this). I have applied for the Paper trading a/c to get used to the platform.

To close a long (for eg.) position directly (i.e. without the price hitting the stop), I presume, one needs to 'sell' an equal amount of shares(???)

Cheers!

Raj
 
rajibde said:
To close a long (for eg.) position directly (i.e. without the price hitting the stop), I presume, one needs to 'sell' an equal amount of shares(???)
Click to expand...

Yes. But if you have a stop order in place when you execute your sell order (without the stop being being hit) make sure you cancel the stop order as you may find yourself unintentionally going short if the stop order is filled as well!
 
jimmy1jag said:
Yes. But if you have a stop order in place when you execute your sell order (without the stop being being hit) make sure you cancel the stop order as you may find yourself unintentionally going short if the stop order is filled as well!
Click to expand...

Jimmy,

Thank you very much for your replies.

Regards

Raj
 
It's good to hear that IB have improved their TWS software
Unfortunately, this does nothing for the quality of their data, particularly bid/ask volume traded. Over the past few days, some of the volume figures, that they transmitted, was absolute garbage. Either that or all the independent data vendors are wrong and they are right. Somehow I doubt it.
 
alan5616 said:
It's good to hear that IB have improved their TWS software
Unfortunately, this does nothing for the quality of their data, particularly bid/ask volume traded. Over the past few days, some of the volume figures, that they transmitted, was absolute garbage. Either that or all the independent data vendors are wrong and they are right. Somehow I doubt it.
Click to expand...

Alan:

For your reference, our market data feeds come directly from the exchange, exclusive of our forex prices where they are coming from interbanks.

Further we offer DIRECT MARKET ACCESS, thus the bid and offer you see on your Trader Workstation are what is transparently being displayed on the exchange.

If you are a client and you are experiencing problems please contact us and we would be glad to help you test your link to us.
 
IB,

Something was seriously wrong with your data, as the traded volume being reported was totally out of line with the independent data vendors. I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that these volumes had been accumulated, from trades made earlier, and had then been reported in large batches.

These out of sync volume figures occurred, predominently, as we were nearing the expiry of the Sep 2006 contracts (2-3 days remaining). There were, also, 4 Price dojis scattered all over my chart. According to the massive negative delta volume data, transmitted by IB, I should have been shorting the market for all it's worth. However, the price was rising and continued to do so.

As I mentioned, previously, I have found IB an excellent company to deal with. The support is first class and the personnel are very helpful. However, after this experience, I felt it a matter of priority to obtain my real time data from another source.
 
Dear Alan:

Respectfully, again, our data is coming directly from the exchange. Further there is a time and sales built into our clients charting package.

We welcome to work with you to review what happed to you, therefore, you can contact us by private e-mail through Trade 2 Win.
 
alan5616 said:
IB,

Something was seriously wrong with your data, as the traded volume being reported was totally out of line with the independent data vendors. I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that these volumes had been accumulated, from trades made earlier, and had then been reported in large batches.

These out of sync volume figures occurred, predominently, as we were nearing the expiry of the Sep 2006 contracts (2-3 days remaining). There were, also, 4 Price dojis scattered all over my chart. According to the massive negative delta volume data, transmitted by IB, I should have been shorting the market for all it's worth. However, the price was rising and continued to do so.

As I mentioned, previously, I have found IB an excellent company to deal with. The support is first class and the personnel are very helpful. However, after this experience, I felt it a matter of priority to obtain my real time data from another source.
Click to expand...

It's interesting that the replies one receives from IB regarding this issue are different from one website to another, even though all the replies emanate from IB. The volume problems have been going on for at least weeks, but IB simply shrugs and avoids all responsibility for what they distribute. Has it not occurred to anyone at any of the IB offices that when a number of people complain about the same problem that there might actually be a problem?
 
IB,

There is no point in me replying to you by private email, as this issue is done and dusted, as far as I'm concerned. I'm using a stable, reliable charting package, which has been around for years so, logically, I have to discount that as being a probable cause of the problem.

From reading dbphoenix's post, it would appear that others have raised similar issues. This is something that I was not aware of. All I would say is that since subscribing to an independent data vendor, I haven't seen a 4 price doji on any of my charts nor, have I seen huge volumes accumulate that conflict with the price action.
 
alan5616 said:
IB,

There is no point in me replying to you by private email, as this issue is done and dusted, as far as I'm concerned. I'm using a stable, reliable charting package, which has been around for years so, logically, I have to discount that as being a probable cause of the problem.

From reading dbphoenix's post, it would appear that others have raised similar issues. This is something that I was not aware of. All I would say is that since subscribing to an independent data vendor, I haven't seen a 4 price doji on any of my charts nor, have I seen huge volumes accumulate that conflict with the price action.
Click to expand...

The volumes are reported directly from the exchange. What has changed is that the CME has started disseminate spread volume within the total volumes. We report what the exchange sends while other vendors may filter out the spread volume.

Most importantly, the data is accurate. By that I mean the bid/ask prices are very timely and by all accounts hold up very well (no lags) during fast markets. Keep in mind we are a direct access broker and not a data vendor. If the spread volumes are a major concern for you, I suggest you vote on the ability to filter them out via the poll mechanism on the IB web site.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/poll.php?ib_entity=llc
 
def said:
The volumes are reported directly from the exchange. What has changed is that the CME has started disseminate spread volume within the total volumes. We report what the exchange sends while other vendors may filter out the spread volume.

Most importantly, the data is accurate. By that I mean the bid/ask prices are very timely and by all accounts hold up very well (no lags) during fast markets. Keep in mind we are a direct access broker and not a data vendor. If the spread volumes are a major concern for you, I suggest you vote on the ability to filter them out via the poll mechanism on the IB web site.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/poll.php?ib_entity=llc
Click to expand...

To say that you're not a "data vendor" is a bit disingenuous as most customers require the data in order to place a trade.

As for voting on filtering out spread volume, if you are truly interested in learning what people want by means of this voting process, perhaps you could organize the topics in some way so that those who want to vote don't have to go through seven pages of items in order to find whatever it is they're looking for.
 
dbphoenix said:
To say that you're not a "data vendor" is a bit disingenuous as most customers require the data in order to place a trade.

As for voting on filtering out spread volume, if you are truly interested in learning what people want by means of this voting process, perhaps you could organize the topics in some way so that those who want to vote don't have to go through seven pages of items in order to find whatever it is they're looking for.
Click to expand...

The main priority for our trading front is to provide accurate bid/ask quotes without slowing down trade execution or routing. We do an excellent job doing that. Our data though, does not necessary show every tick. That's the trade-off we've made to ensure we don't have lags during very active periods. In addition, we are not profiting off of the sale of data. For these reasons, I do not consider ourselves as a data vendor.

The poll is a new feature and I'm sure it will evolve over time. I'm tempted to state you should post a suggestion to organize the features under different topics but I think my attempt at humor would be missed by some. I think your point is extremely vaild and will pass along that suggestion myself.
 
def said:
The main priority for our trading front is to provide accurate bid/ask quotes without slowing down trade execution or routing. We do an excellent job doing that. Our data though, does not necessary show every tick. That's the trade-off we've made to ensure we don't have lags during very active periods. In addition, we are not profiting off of the sale of data. For these reasons, I do not consider ourselves as a data vendor.
Click to expand...

Nor do you profit off providing charts, yet you provide them. Anyone using them assumes that the charts are accurate, just as they assume that the data is accurate.

IB responds to the complaints about volume by saying that the data is received from CME; therefore, the data is accurate. But that doesn't address the complaint. If CME were to redefine "high" and "low" and "last trade", that would also create problems. For IB to respond under those circumstances that none of this is their problem because they are receiving the data directly from CME would not be addressing that problem, either, even though the data would be "accurate". This is not customer service.

The poll is a new feature and I'm sure it will evolve over time. I'm tempted to state you should post a suggestion to organize the features under different topics but I think my attempt at humor would be missed by some. I think your point is extremely vaild and will pass along that suggestion myself.
Click to expand...

My suggestion to organize the topics was beside the point, and that was my misstep. I should have said instead that if I were to follow your suggestion and vote on what should be done about spread volume that I should be linked to the specific item, not to a batch of seven pages of topics which I must then sift through in order to find whatever it is I'm looking for. Surely it must have occurred to someone that a customer faced with having to go through all of that would simply post a new topic whether it is redundant or not, thus adding to the length of the list. All support boards suffer from this (as do message boards of all kinds), which is why vendors often resort to polls (emailed to customers, not tucked away on the website).
 
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