Day Trading stocks with IB

Discussion in 'Interactive Brokers' started by roncer, Feb 28, 2004.

  1. roncer

    roncer

    I have started trading stocks the last two weeks. Quite a few problems have been coming up with fills. Understand I have been with IB for about 3 years trading the eminis and like their lightening fills particularly on limit orders but now with trading stocks I am having problems. Some times the fills are fast and and right on and other times I enter with a market order or a limit order to sell at or below the bid and there is no fill, I find myself waiting for maybe 1/2 a minute then the bid and ask change and my limit order may now be out of the spread, but still why wasn't I filled on a market order?? I have had pop-ups say "it's to late for market orders to be accepted" this was after 3:40 PM EST. After calling IB they said the NYSE doesn't accept market orders after 3:40. I am finding it a real dance trying to figure out what exchange I should be using for each specific stock that I wish to trade. Should I go with Smart, Arca, Brut, NYSE or what?? I am beganing to wonder if another broker might be better for day trading stocks. Comments appreciated.

    Ron
     
  2. New York does not accept MOC (market on close) orders after 2:40PM CST. You can sent a regular market order until a couple of seconds before the close and you will probably get filled.
     
  3. roncer

    roncer

    I was trying to cover a position with a simple market order not MOC.
     
  4. roncer

    roncer

    I have tried twice to cover a position after 3:40 EST in the last two days with no luck. Also sometimes there is a lag time during the day with market orders. I an not understand this. Shouldn't your fill always come in a few seconds with a market order??
     
  5. I'M as puzzled as you are. If IB is not accepting markets orders 20 minutes before the close I would run , not walk away from that firm. Good Luck.
     
  6. roncer

    roncer

    I am walking and thinking maybe I need to run but to where?
     
  7. I use IB and I've had no problems with NYSE market orders after 3:40PM. Had fills as late as 3:59:45 this week. MOC is the only order constrained after 3:40.
     
  8. roncer

    roncer

    I guess it would be nice if IB reps had the correct info as they told me different. Thanks.

    Changing brokers doesn't seem like fun as most seem to charge more. Maybe I need to get some tech assiatance and modify the TWS in some way.
     
  9. rwk

    rwk

    I frequently trade NYSE stocks via IB in the last few seconds before 4pm Eastern, several thousand shares, and have no problem getting filled on market orders. Limit, IOC, and sweep-to-fill are another matter. Fill reports on NYSE and AMEX trades are always painfully slow, but that is the specialist, not the broker causing the delay. It's the same with any broker. If I use limit orders with listed stocks, including ETFs such as QQQ, I never know if I am in or out. Because of that, my systems always trade listed stocks using only market orders.

    I also trade Nasdaq stocks, and I use SMART routing exclusively for that. I always specify NYSE routing for all NYSE stocks, even though SMART routing also works.

    Regarding IB customer support, my experience has varied between pretty good and unaccaptable bad. I pay about $20k per year in commissions, and I expect them to at least be nice to me. Fortunately, I don't require much assistance. I trade mostly through the TWSAPI using applications that I wrote.
     
  10. roncer

    roncer

    RWK,

    Thank you for the good your information.

    Smart for NASD and NYSE for NYSE stocks. I am not familiar with TWSAPI. I must have some set up wrong with my TWS as it should be taking those late market orders. Do you have any more ideas or suggestions?

    Ron
     
    #10     Feb 28, 2004