Good Question... Answer is in your last sentence: Just talking about going the opposite direction at your other broker. This would be your hedge. But only if you know what your position is with broker #1...
To all posters: I am hearing that IB will disconnect if it judges your ISP connection to be inadequate. I wonder if anyone (Maybe Maxpi) knows if using a cable modem is any more reliable or produces a better connection than my DSL (Verizon). I am guessing that a dedicated phone line would be best. Any ideas?
version, if there is packet loss - or to spell it out in layman's terms - there is the possibility that data won't be rec'd or confirmed by you, IB or the exchange. when this occurs, IB creates the "pink" condition. Sounds reasonable to me. Sounds like you'd prefer to stay loggeed and and risk not receiving information. backup broker: electronic connections will fail. Didn't another broker take a hit with their service yesterday morning? Sounds like you couldn't call in there for trades when they were down. such a scenario can happen with any firm. it just makes sense that if you are going to be actively trading, you should have a backup and/or understand the risks of electronic trading over the internet.
steve, i've run TWS reliably over a 56K modem. you just need a connection that is stable w/o large packet loss.
I have Business Cable and DSL combined using as Duel WAN Router. Using this combination I've never been down (two years) because of an ISP. I also have software that auto detect If IB is down and they've been down alot recently.
I'm guessing that everyone here is experiencing the problems at IB's end and some of the more random-seeming troubles might be at the users end. If your software disappeared from your computer it's probably not internet related, it's probably something to do with software on your computer only. Regarding connections I would think the dialup connection to generally be the most reliable. Packet losses is what made me think about the difference between my two dialup ISP's, the one that usually hooks me up slower is actually probably the more reliable one regarding having no packet loss on a noisy line. The one that always hooks me up at 56k probably has less stringent measures of packet loss. I know that the slower one is very well thought of generally and considered to have the technical talent. I will have to talk to them about packet loss on Monday, perhaps they can tell me of a way to measure that without it just being rolled into a speed measurement.
I have used both Linksys (wire) and Netgear (wireless) routers. The number of times that I get the "pink condition" on TWS was up to a few times a day while I was using those products vs. the approx two times a year when I wasn't. Since then I have just connected my execution computer straight to the cable modem and I very very rarely have a problem. Before I did this I tried working with support at IB to troubleshoot the problem and the person said that there were a number of customers were having the same problem and that the packet loss through the home networking product was too high. I'm willing to shell out the cash for a better product if there is one that I know will have acceptable performance for TWS to run well through it, I just don't know what that product would be... Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks, DTK
You all are really scaring me. So let me ask a question that will help calm me down. How do you find IB's GTC stop execution? Reliable as a safety net? Doesn't the TWS offer conditional orders where upon the conditon of a specific order being filled, a second order (eg. your stop order, gtc or dayorder) is placed?
I am a huge fan of IB. In the past I have had very few problems with TWS connectivity. But my TWS connection has gone down several times in the last week. I have a broadband internet connection which is very stable. I noted on one occasion that as my TWS disconnected several participants in a chat board which I follow also reported independently that "IB is down". This is hopefully a one-off situation which will be rapidly resolved.
I've had more than my share of knock-offs over the years and it IS pretty much at times the market whiplashes - lost money that i was already counting in the bank, if you know what i mean. By the time the platform comes back up, the gains have turned to losses. My thought is that the various platforms, especially the browser based -just cannot take a SUDDEN surge of high volume that occurs when the market takes a turn. Reading the list of woes made me realize that this hasn't happened to me for a long time and not this fall, never on IB. I am using a wireless connection (to the internet and using the downloaded version of the TWS. I use Novatel's Merlin wireless card.