So it seems that the Globex problems today were specific to IB. Every broker will have problems, but IB could have handled things much better. For one thing, I couldn't get a straight answer from them whether the problem was with Globex itself or their connection to Globex. In any case, I hope no one got screwed today. Good trading.
IB was/is a real stinker on this one. After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes to get through to the $30/trade order desk they tell me that not even -they- can place a trade for me! I'm short the NQ and have a stop loss order and a cover order in when their globex order connection goes down (though quotes were still updating). My call was around 1:30 eastern (Mon 11/19). IB Trader Workstation software had been unresponsive for order entry for some time but my profit was growing. When I called I had about 9 points profit on my short and wanted to cover and consider going long (hindsight, a perfect entry for 40 point run into close). I have not officially (in writing/e-mail) found out the status of my position and outstanding orders though the order desk told me later that my initial cover order was filled (5 points below my short entry). In the middle of composing this message I get my evening confirm from IB saying, and I quote "Due to technical difficulties between IB and GLOBEX between 13:00 and 15:00 New York time, you may not have received a trade report on your TWS. The trades will be manually added Monday evening, and appear on your TWS. You will see the trades reflected in your Tuesday account statement because they were added after the Monday close. We apologize for the inconvenience." At this point I -think- I'm long the NQ with a decent profit but I won't know for sure until tommorrow? I called in a cover order that resulted in me losing money on the trade (though my max profit was ~12 pts they claim they could not place my order until I called several times and waited on hold for quite a while total). I thought this order made me flat but the IB rep (who was actually decent, not all are) told me that my 5 point cover order was filled (after he called globex), so as I'm composing this I think I'm long. IB is a division of a large international trading firm (Timber Hill) who handles many large accounts and must have some redundancy. In addition, whats to keep IB (engaging Oliver Stone mode here) from pulling the plug on retail order servers after taking a position against that order flow that they know will be kicking back in at some point. I have never done any trading (stock, options or futures) with a broker that could not place a trade when I called them. Its insane and inexcusible. The camel's back is broken. How cheap or expensive is an unreliable broker? There's no way to tell until you get a big loss because of them. The $5.90 rt fees seem like a good deal until you lose several hundred on 1 trade. P.S. Just got back my daily confirms and they are now denying my 5 pt cover so a trade that had a max profit of 12 pts and one that -they- told me I exited with 5 pts profit is now allegedly a loss. I will fight this one before moving my account.
The same thing happened to me. I was short the NQ just before the drop to the LOD. I had a stop order in for protection. I went to modify the order and it would not modify or cancel. I called IB and got a busy signal 5 times before getting through. When I got through a recording told me it would be approx. 7 minutes until the call was answered. I waited on hold for 16 min. until a rep came on. I asked her to check to see if the stop order was still in place. She asked me to hold on and then transferred me back to the original recording. Can you believe that? The new recording said that I would be on hold for approx. 10 min. I waited another 36 min. until an IB rep answered. By this time the LOD had been put in and the NQ was trading back where I had gotten in. IB completely screwed me. I asked the rep to close the trade and I was told that IB could not trade and that they had no ETA on when they would be able to close my position. He said that they were having a bad day. Poor guy. The rep also said that he could not confirm wether the stop was filled or if it was even at the CME. I didn'tât know if I was flat or still short and we were beginning to rally. I called a friend and had him cover me in his account at roughly breakeven. I called a bit later and waited about another 10 min to ask if Globex was up yet. The rep put me on hold for a few minutes and then said that he could not confirm or deny it. Finally, I was able to close out the position later in the day. IB still has no idea if the stop was filled or not. That trade and other problems Iâve had with IB, like stops that are activated when the last trade is nowhere near the stop price, have cost me way too much. I did some figuring and the net commissions with IB after you add in the losses Iâve taken from their mistakes adds up to about 9.25 a trade. I can get better than that someplace else without all the hassles and from what I've been hearing a lot faster too. The other traders were right. Iâm not flushing any more money down the IB toilet.
I couldn't get an answer from IB whether my stops were filled or not. I tried both the phone help desk (on hold 30 mins) as well as the live chat. The live chat person was especially stupid. They couldn't tell me anything, not even what the nature of the problem was, was it just IB, was it Globex in general, etc. I couldn't get them to confirm if I was net long, short, or flat. I asked them how can I close out all my positions and he said I could not do anything until Globex is back up. So about an hour later it's back up, I check my execution window and had no fills, I check my account window and it shows I'm still net long, so I cover. Then I get this notice that there may be fills that will show up tomorrow morning. Great, the market rallied into the close. In fact, if my stops were hit, I'd be up 12-pts, but instead I may find myself down 12-18 pts depending on which of my two stops or both were filled. That's a 24-30-pt swing on pure IB stupidity. I don't mind the inherent risk in electronic trading (e.g. not being able to offset your positions until the system is back up), that sucks but it happens. But when the system is back up, and then you adjust your positions, and then you get delayed fills after the market closes??? The fills won't even show up until tomorrow morning so you can't adjust your overnight positions. What if you day trade only, do size but don't carry positions over night, you are net long and today was September 10th? Your account will be auto-liquidated tomorrow because it will drop below maintenance margin. I'm using something other than IB. Screw me once, shame on me... I'm not going to let IB screw me twice.
I did the instant messenger thing with IB this evening from their web page. They acknowledged that globex executed my NQ cover order at a profit and so when I finally got them to execute on the phone it made me long instead of flat. The rep said this would be corrected with Tuesday evening confirms. I asked that he/she manually enter the position in my Trader Workstation and they did. I plan to make one more trade with IB either tonight or tomorrow (to exit my long) and probably switch to a J-Trader broker with reasonable rates + reliable and prompt telephone execution. I wonder if IB is actually going to charge me $30 for that phone execution. I would have been flat already if Trader Workstation were working for me at the regular session close (and my correct position was there). I'm steamed at the exposure I had as an IB "customer".
IB seriously screwed up on this one. But the worst part is they don't seem to want to own up to their mistake. I can deal with the occasional lagging quotes and even the wait when I call phone support. But if after you reach them to go flat on a trade they still can't execute, then what use is their phone support? I didn't lose any money from today's outage, as I immediately canceled my order to go short when I noticed that my order just hung there on TWS. But it wasn't until things were restored on their end that they could verify that I was flat. Now after reading these posts I'm realizing that the risk of their malfunction was entirely on me. I'm trying hard not to overreact to what happened today, but the message I'm getting from the way IB handled things is this: If something goes wrong on my end and I reach them, I can get out of a trade. But if something goes wrong on their end and I want to get out of a trade, I'm out of luck. That stance is utterly unacceptable. Tomorrow, I will be calling around for another broker.
You are not going to believe this, but IB makes you sign on their contract that if their system screws up and you take a loss it is entirely your fault. Every broker makes you sign this crap. What a bunch of rip-offs. Apparently IB is the king of the hill when it comes to screwing up and ripping you off.
Yeah, but what happens if you find out tonight that you got filled after all. That's the main reason I'm so upset, if IB can't even verify if I'm net long or short, I can't offset my positions with another broker. IB did everything possible to drive me to find another broker today. They didn't do one thing right, not one. Every possible thing they could have done they did wrong. This is just from my personal experience.
I think when a brokers system goes down and you have to make a trade by phone then they should pay YOU $30 to complete the trade. Why do they have it backwards? They get you coming and they get you coming...