Can't fill large option orders for 5-10 minutes (IB paper-trading account)

Good day, fellow traders,

I would like to ask those who trade large lots of options (on a buy side) - I'm talking about 1000 options at once for instance (not 1000s but a single thousand).
I currently test IB TWS platform (paper-trade) and notice that when I send a market order (500-1000 options) for some stocks (like pretty liquid GPS today) - the system does not execute it all at once but executes it very slow by 2-10 lots thus delaying complete execution for up to 10-15 minutes and almost every small lot increases average option price. I've not dealt with options before but still find it rather strange - such a delayed execution for orders which less that several 1000s.
So I wanted to ask those who trade lots like this - is this rather just a feature of a paper-trade account of TWS or orders of 1000 options can indeed take up to 10-15 minutes to execute even on liquid stocks like GPS?


Thanks

 

I'm pretty sure their paper trading account only executes your trades based on actual trades for limit orders, i.e. if you enter something inside the spread for 1000 contracts and 4 contracts trade at that size they give your paper account 4 contracts.
Obviously the paper trading account regardless of how its set up has no relationship to how your order will trade in the real world, where it is matched to opposing orders on the order book or can generate its own opposing orders when you post inside the bid/ask spread. You only determine how that works by trading real $, paper trading only takes you so far.

 

Hey, if you're gonna papertrade, you might as well trade size!

 

yep

 

Thanks guys, that's pretty much what I wanted to know. Appreciated.

 

What do you mean by "trading size"?

 

It's common to have a new member with $5000 to their name and no trading experience come on this board and ask questions about what will happen when they make multi-million dollar trades. You seem to fit this profile, so he was poking a little light fun at you for "trading size" i.e. making big trades in a paper trade account when either you don't have the funds to do that in a real account or you seem to know so little about trading that you'd be foolhardy to trade it in a real account if you do have the funds.

 

Oh. Lol. I do indeed fit this profile though 30K-40K in options is not exactly a big trade, is it.

 

I guess not! What are the commission costs for this trade? IB has it at a dollar both ways, let alone the spread. So you're paying thousands of dollars just for the trade itself. Can you afford to lose all of it?

 

you are really clueless are you ? yes that is a big trade for a retail trader and I am talking as a former options broker and market maker ...