I'm trying to figure out the syntax for the sharesAlloc attribute so that I can submit an order through the API to my Friends and Family Advisory account. The User Guide and the example provided in the latest TwsDde.xls file imply that the allocation is by number of shares as opposed to a ratio of shares. This is a problem because that means that every time I enter a new order with a different number of shares, I would need to manually change the allocation, even if I want the ratio to be consistent across all orders (e.g., if I always wanted the allocation to be 50/50 between two sub-accounts, then for an order of 1000 shares I would have to set the allocation to 500 and 500, and if I submit a second order for 2000 shares, I would have to manually reset the allocation to 1000 and 1000, rather than IB calculating the number of shares based on a preset 50/50 ratio). Am I reading this right? To have to hard code the number of shares allocated seems poorly designed, especially since in the TWS you can define an allocation profile that would automatically calculate the share allocation based on a user-defined ratio. Any insight on how I could do this would be appreciated.
You are warned. Be careful: IB's FA platform is buggy doing weird things. If you actually want to trade several accounts with one click - you will be disappointed. IB guys' response: "we are working on the issues" (as always).