tripack ok, now i see why everyone is so neurotic about it so, another broker is the only option to protect yourself
As the commercials say, "Not Excactly" One of the main problems people are having is knowing what their position is. They put in an order and get no confirmation that it has been filled. 40 minutes later the bulletin comes through that they were filled. If you don't know your position then you can't hedge in another account when your primary broker goes down. This is probably the worst part of online trading. But on the main point you are right - a backup broker is a must for online traders.
tripack ok, i absolutely get that, but i guess to have the problem, you have to be either in a trade, or have just taken a trade at the moment the system goes wrong i guess the first depends how much you trade and you have to be really unlucky to have the second happen to you - but none the less - i bet it screws up your day when it does happen!
Yeah it is really a numbers game. Eventually if you trade often enough (or stay in your positions long enough) you will be caught. That's why we have battery backups for our computers, backup brokers, pencil and paper...
tripack and i have just realised how painful this could be for me - because on certain trading days i will add to a winning position, effectively taking off the table my winnings and placing it on the next move - on the basis if i lose, i am only giving back what i made and will get out quick and if i win - i am making a big mulitple of my normal size - but if i dont know if the last trade has happened due to a problem, i will end up in a trade at a much higher size than i would normally use - and no way to know if i should cover or not - shit!
I share the sentiments of everyone on here...It is funny how at first you are analyzing the risk of a given trade, but eventually you are analyzing the reliability of your trading platform...This is mind f***ing at its finest... It is funny that someone else had the same experience jumping broker to broker...Again, it seems that everyone has their flaws...With some the software is just far too cumbersome, with others it is the commission structure and fees, etc... I still wish IB would go back to the old system, that thing was finally "bug free" after years of real time use...I was using that last year and then when I opened an account with them at the beginning of this year I was forced to use Java...This technology craze with ALWAYS upgrading is the problem...Everyone wants to forge ahead and then all of the "bugs" enter the system...
Is this outage issue with IB mostly for Globex? If I'm trading stocks only is IB a problem broker regarding outages?