ARCA is killing me! I have been using it to trade SPY exclusively since ISLD shut down but many times my orders are not executed TWS returning an order invalid message. These orders can be market or limit. It often happens when I place a sweep order a dime or so outside NBBO. WTF IS THAT? SMART quotes are always crossed plus it's slower. I didn't get filled this am on SMART after PMI, the market just took off . IB has to fix this ASAP, but help is clueless says never heard of that problem !
ARCA's been pretty f^cked up over the past month or so. The problem is with them, not IB. I've been seeing alot of stale ARCA bids and offers lately on listed stocks. Haven't you noticed the daily bulletins about ARCA? It seems like they're down 25% of the time lately.
Just route through TMBR If ARCA spends as much capital on their infrastructure as their silly-assed TV spots they'd work just fine.
I continuously get bulletins throughout the day from IB re: ARCA. "symbols with the letters F through P are not available" "symbols with the letters D through M are not available" etc.... They should just send out one bulletin every morning. "symbols with the letters A through Z will not be available at some point today"
I don't use ARCA, but here is a thought: The problem might be that (at least last time I checked, which was at least 6 months ago) IB only accepts passive limit orders for ARCA and REDI. This means that e.g. your buy limit price must be < than the ask price. Market orders get rejected, because IB simulates market orders into limit orders that match/exceed the ask price.
PXG, there is definitely something wrong with the way IB treats ARCA orders. I too was told by IB help that ARCA only accepts passive orders but I thought it meant orders were not redirected in case of partials or that the active features of ARCA were disabled . I had executions matching the ask or a few cents higher but I don't try to bid 15 cents above the market as I used to . I used to prepare the order a few minutes in advance and usually up/lower the limit to get filled in case the market had moved. If as I suspect what you said is correct (btw where did you get that info)? how are you supposed to place an order on ARCA then ? And what about SMART? Quotes are not accurate and execution is slow how can you rely on it?
Kicking, I don't use ARCA. I use SMART market orders, and in general, am happy with the executions. I swing-trade highly liquid Nasdaq stocks. As for ARCA/REDI, I believe IB disabled active orders in spring 2001. I used to use it then. Then suddenly my market orders started to get rejected. IB customer service blamed everything I can think of, but nothing helped, since they were uninformed about the change. After 2 weeks of numerous calls/e-mails/tests somebody from IB finally told me where the problem was....
ARCA and REDI ECN's are trying to amalgamate their systems. As you can tell it's not working out too well. Seems ARCA is down every single day as some point.
to echo others; today, at least, was definitely NOT ib's fault. realtick pulled the ARCA book at one point because of thei (ARCA's) problems.