He waited but the order status did not change until he logged off and logged back in. This is not the first time that TWS does this. So many times, even charts would not be displayed properly in TWS and then once you close down TWS and re-open TWS and log back in, everything would be fine. Slow enough to be not working properly.
Exactly! I entered multiple orders because I didn't see the status change. So IB actually filled my original order but didn't update the status. It still showed me SHORT when I was already filled. So I didn't know and enter another series of longs, which it subsequently got filled too. I had to SHUT DOWN TWS then open it again to see that I was now long. Just ridiculous. Sorry for the late respone. I wrote this this morning before going to work. Now I'm home and have some time to read through all of you guys comments. Thanks everyone!
You are jumping to conclusions just because it fits what you think happened. It's just a coincidence that when you logged out and back in, the status updated. If you had stayed logged in, you would have gotten the update but since you weren't, you didn't see it. Chalk this up as a learning experience. When you have a pink status color, don't assume your order is cancelled. If you get into this situation again, call or chat with IB and have them look at it.
Actually I stayed logged in too long. I waited for like 15-20mins. I should have logged out right way when it seems stuck. Then log back in then it would have updated it. Then I would have gotten out of the wrong long and got back in the original short and still ended up profitable like I originally intended. Lessons learned. When things are stuck log out right away and log back in. Rather than wait for the system to catch up.
One shouldn't have to wait 15 minutes even just to see the order status update. This is way unacceptable. If one still has to resort to talking to a live person to find out about order status, then what's the point of using an automatic real-time trading platform? We will just go back to phoning our brokers like the old times then. This is me overthinking this but I hope this is not a scheme of some sort by IB forcing people to do phone-in orders which cost $65 per trade.