Original Trade entered via IB's TWS on 4/20/06: Bracket Order: Parent: Buy Stop LIMIT - Buy 100k eur.usd @ 1.2348 Lmt 1.2346 Stop Child: Sell Limit - Sell 100k eur.usd @ 1.2358 Lmt Child: Sell Stop - sell 100k eur.usd @ 1.2335 Stp EXECUTION: Buy of 100k eur.usd @ 1.2320 Time/date - 13:55:23 04/20/2006 Sell of 100k eur.usd @ 1.23125 Time/date - 14:45:55 04/20/2006 Pay particular attention to the times and prices. According to time and sales gleaned off of TWS Charts, there was no bid or ask @ or above 1.2346 at the time in which the parent order was triggered and executed. And imagine if there was a freak bid that triggered the order. Given the stop that was part of the bracket order, wouldn't you think it would trigger immdediately and not some 50 mins later? If you look at not only IB's charts during this day and time, but also any WEB based Forex charts, you will see that there were no trades reported at the level (1.2346) which would trigger the parent buy stop limit. I have contacted IB and they tell me that their research indicates that this is a fair trade. Of course that seems ludicrous to me. But that matter is ongoing. This is such a freak thing that I wanted to bring this to the attention of the public. I'm thinking that perhaps others may have experienced supremely erroneous trades on this day around this time. Specifically FOREX trades. I am hoping that IB will consider the matter with earnest and reimburse me for what I believe is an error on their part. But most importantly is that they will swiftly and dilligently address the issue which caused this bizarre event to occur for the good of their other customers. I wouldn't want to have to leave IB over it but this sort of risk is too much to contend with if not addressed properly.
Yet, imagine that they did, the bracket order had a stop which would have executed immediately if not a few seconds later near 1.2320 considering that the parent was erroneously filled @ 1.2320 with a stop (child of bracket order) set @ 1.2335. But the stop was filled some 50 mins later some 23 pips lower. Nothing makes sense here.
So far all I received was a statement saying that the trades appear legitimate. But that's not a final determination as they are still looking into it. Any right thinking person upon presentation of the facts wouldn't state that the trade(s) appear(s) legitimate. I think that perhaps that the series of events is not yet fully understood by the IB staff that are looking into the case.
If they had problems with IDEAL Pro late execution reports (*), then you have to find out the transaction time from the audit trail, not from the execution window. Did you check what times were shown in your daily account statements ? (*) See www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=68101
Trade times and price are from audit trail and daily account statement. Yet even a late report cannot explain how the parent order - Buy Stop lmt 1.2348l, 1.2346s - was triggered and how the child stop of 1.2335 was not near simultaneously elected given the execution price of the parent.
The one thing that bothers me is the length of time it's taking to solve what is obviously a serious error on IB's part. I got a few sound bites but not the impression this matter is being taken seriously. I get that "you get what you pay for." I do. But I choose IB because I figured with their technology, even if a "hiccup" or two happens they could easily research the matter and take the appropriate steps required to remedy it. An answer of "This issue was researched by our Technical Operations Group and they have indicated to us that the fill is indeed a good fill" is grossly insufficient. How did they come to this determination? Did they take into account that the stop which was a child to the parent order they are claiming is a good fill, was mysteriously triggered and filled 50 minutes later? Their own time and sales data, which is only Bid/Ask for Forex never shows the eur.usd on 4/20/06 during the time around 13:55 reached a level to trigger the parent Buy Stop limit of 1.2348L, 1.2346s. My next fear is that even if they come to the same conclusion, the sane conclusion, that they hit me with, "well sorry, we can't bust the trade because you notified us on Monday instead of Friday when it happened." Well, when I returned home of Friday @ 7:30 PM, there was nothing I could do until Monday. The more I think about this situation, the more it bothers me.
UPDATE: Spoke with an IB rep on Friday. It appears that they were looking at the wrong date when they concluded that the trade was legitimate. They were looking at my trades on the 21st of April and not the 20th (the date when the bizarre trade occured). Surely now this matter can be resovled. Hopefully during next week I'll be able to post the results of the matter.