I trade futures with IB. In the weekend of May 19 I sold a future on Saturday. Monday (May 21)I checked it, since there is no trading in the weekends they say. TUESday afternoon (May 22)at 15:56 the trade was 'reversed' by a manual order of IB. They say it was erroneous. (The exchange told them) Has this happened to anyone else? Is it reasonable to have a 'time-lag' of TWO working days between an 'erroneous' trade and the 'reversal'? Since I went away for the week (on Monday, May 21)and didn't check (I had no open position)I am at a considerable loss now. IB is not very cooperative in solving the situation. (I asked them to 'undo' the trade)
A broken trade is simply a trade that never took place. Consequently, your position would still be open. You should know that futures don't trade on Saturday. Unfortunately, you have no case, and it will be wise to put it behind you as soon as possible without any arguments. The fact you were out of town does not make any difference. It is your responsibility to check your account balances on a daily basis. Another expensive lesson learned the hard way
In reply to Sniper Trader1. I checked my position on Monday. I had no open contracts. So for me there was no reason to check my account daily. Checking on a daily basis means that, as of now, I can never again go on a holiday anymore? I understand that you (and all other future traders) can never go on holiday (unless you have a worldwide internet excess on a computer where IB's workstation is installed) I find this real hard to believe Mr. Sniper Trader1
gerritjan, I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune. Your losses, while painful, will serve to help other new traders learn a very important lesson. That is, know when your markets trade. I am assuming that you are trading either the S&P or Naz minis, which trade on Globex and are closed from 3:15pm US Central Time until Sunday 5:30pm US Central Time. For any Globex traders out there, here is the list of extended trading hours for the various contracts: http://www.cme.com/market/eth.html What I would like to know is how your trade placed on Saturday ever got executed? That would be something def might be able to explain. With the markets closed, it should have been held until Sunday night. I'm split on that issue. While I think it is the traders responsibility to know the trading hours, it is also the brokers responsibility to only allow executions when the market is open and the trades will be upheld by the exchange. Fear not, you will be able to go on a vacation again, just make sure your orders are filled before the extended market closes. I know that you had no way to know that you weren't really filled since the screen said you were, but with a proper knowledge of the hours, this can be avoided in the future. I use IB for futures as well and have not had any problems like that, but I never trade in the extended market. There are just too many things that can go wrong. The lack of liquidity is enough to make me avoid it. Maybe someday the volume will pick up enough to make it worthwhile, but even traders have to sleep sometime, lol. I know this doesn't make your situation any better, but it might keep someone else from experiencing the same thing. Kirk
gerritjan, Sorry to hear what happened. Apparantly, Globex did some testing and turned on their systems over the weekend. I do not know all the details behind this but I'm not sure what IB can do. Normally access is not granted when the market is closed. I can dig a bit deeper into what happened but as it is a serious issue, it has probably been addressed with programming and compliance internally.
I am trading S&P mini's. I knew the opening hours, but turning on the WS I saw I could enter orders, so I thought they might have changed the times. The reply of IB is that the exchange started a new release of their software (or something like that) and accidently accepted and executed orders (On my WS I saw that a few hours after my trade the last trade was 20 points lower then mine, so more people must have the same problem I have I guess). Thanks for the supportive comments, I hope I can prevent other from making this mistake by entering this thread. I have to consider it my loss it seems, if anybody has anything better, please let me know.
I have something better, Don't trade with IB! This is absurd. I will contradict my previous post and say this: The IB system should know that the market is closed. As far as I am concerned, their acceptance of the order and execution while the market is closed is their mistake. You should be held harmless. If you have the time, you should take them to arbitration. You can e mail me and I will put you in contact with someone that could guide you in this matter.