Horrible experience:IB cost me $50,000 this morning

Discussion in 'Order Execution' started by zhexin2, Mar 20, 2008.

  1. Joab

    Joab

    Sorry but your obviously a shill for IB or your just to stupid to know the difference yet.
     
    #51     Mar 23, 2008
  2. fbell50

    fbell50

    I frequently have 100 executions in a day. I only request all orders or executions after a connection failure. I trust my ATS implementation to properly track orders and executions. I wouldn't work with an ATS that I did not trust.

    I assume the 50 message limit is designed to prevent non-stop hyper-active order entry/cancelation without an adequate execution ratio, and if so I think it's reasonable. I wish it was more flexible, allowing for occasional short bursts of activity through out the day
     
    #52     Mar 23, 2008
  3. Sometimes I wonder whether this is just one moron posting under different usernames or whether there are actually this many idiots who post here. This statement has to be one of the stupidest I have ever read here.

    It's not that it's dead wrong. We all know that. It's that someone could show an interest in trading, read about it, register here, read all the posts here, and not be able to figure out what's going on. How dense do you have to be?
     
    #53     Mar 23, 2008
  4. I trade prop and retail (IB) using fully auto programs. I see no advantage to prop from an execution or automation point of view. In fact I see several advantages to IB including the fact that they support complex order types that allow me to push some decision making off onto IB's servers. My prop firm's software doesn't support any complex order types. IB's API is better written, better documented and better supported than my prop platform (Sterling). You can't even modify an open order through the Sterling API, you have to do a full cxl/replace on your end to modify an order. Sterling also will completely shut down if it senses a connection problem, leaving your programs sitting in limbo. IB will do a background reconnect while maintaining a connection between TWS and your programs. When a connection is reestablished there's a little bit of catchup time (a few seconds?) and my programs are running normally again. After a Sterling shuts completely down I have to re-login to Sterling, restart my programs and execute special recovery routines to restart trading. This takes minutes. Amateur indeed! I guess you could call Sterling professional level because I have to pay a monthly fee to use it? Or perhaps because you need to be a professional programmer to write programs for it?

    I also feel there is more liquidity available at IB than at my prop firm. At my prop firm I can route to DirectEdge and hope for price improvement. There's no internal matching at all. At IB I get a significant number of fills on SMART and IDEAL, routes not available at my prop firm.

    Finally, the 2 most profitable traders I know (multiple 7 fig PnL) trade strictly 100% retail, full auto. 1 at IB, 1 elsewhere.

    So the experience of myself and other professional automated retail traders contradict your statements. I'd love to hear what platform you're running your programs on and why you think it is better?

    Regarding the OP's problem, I concur that he likely ran into the 50 msg/sec limit of the IB API. You need to add some code to limit your order rate. BTW, this limit also exists on my "prop" platform.
     
    #54     Mar 23, 2008
  5. Oh, man, you got my attention, that's beautiful music to my ears! (I assume you mean 7 figure "P" not "L.")

    I hope you can find some time to tell us a little more about them. Do they trade futures? Can't be stocks if IB is the broker.
     
    #55     Mar 23, 2008
  6. 100% stocks in both cases. And yes, one of them has historically done most of his volume at IB.

    Both are somewhat active posters on ET. That's all I'm comfortable saying. I'm not trying to bring attention on them, but rather expose the complete fallacy that you can't make money trading retail or that trading prop is somehow better than retail.

    Historically there were some good advantages to prop, but most of those advantages are gone. Now days, prop gets you access to more capital. If you don't need the capital, there just aren't that many incentives to go prop anymore. If you're doing 3M+ shrs/month at IB, it's likely your rates are lower than most (not all) prop firms.

    My IB programs made far more money in 2007 than my programs that run on Sterling. YTD, my Sterling programs are outperforming slightly, but only because one of my IB programs hasn't done well in this volatility. And I have to say I cringe when I find a new idea is better suited to my prop firm and I have to write it for Sterling. It's just so much harder to code for Sterling. I do about 300-600K shrs per day,FWIW.
     
    #56     Mar 23, 2008
  7. let me get this straight,

    on a $4,500,000 you loss less than 1%, or $50,000 (ouch)...

    on a $4,500 account the equivalent loss is $50.....(ohhh)....

    ----

    just curious

    I was kinda surprised at how hard to believe, the size of the account, others made comments on....

    putting it in the average trader's terms, with account sizes more in line with most of the traders on this board, then the $50 loss, or less than 1% is, well ......

    hey, hope you can get things right with IB
     
    #57     Mar 24, 2008
  8. ronblack

    ronblack

    Put it well in your mind that electronic brokers will screw you at one point or another, intentionally or unintentionally. and it will cost you more than a full service broker.

    You have limited experience trading, this is clear. You are probably a small time trader who counts the pennies after placing that 100 share lot.

    Full service is NOT for you. Actually, they will turn you down. You sound like the person who envies those that drive expensive cars and have big houses. You will never make money trading through electronic brokers. Probably, you have already blown up your $1,000 account.

    Too bad there are people in these threads who have serious attitude problem.

    Ron
     
    #58     Mar 24, 2008
  9. ronblack

    ronblack

    Put it well in your mind that electronic brokers will screw you at one point or another, intentionally or unintentionally. and it will cost you more than a full service broker.

    You have limited experience trading, this is clear. You are probably a small time trader who counts the pennies after placing that 100 share lot.

    Full service is NOT for you. Actually, they will turn you down. You sound like the person who envies those that drive expensive cars and have big houses. You will never make money trading through electronic brokers. Probably, you have already blown up your $1,000 account.

    Too bad there are people in these threads who have serious attitude problem.

    Ron
     
    #59     Mar 24, 2008
  10. ronblack

    ronblack

    By the way, I just noticed that most of your recent posts are in Politics & Religion and you constantly attack other posters. You have a serious problem, these threads are not for you. No trader has time to participate in a forum about Palestinians. Since you have done that, it is clear you do not trade and probably you have never traded.

    Ron


     
    #60     Mar 24, 2008