I am new to Interactive Brokers but not to trading. I recently opened an account despite the complaints I read about on ET and elsewhere. I trusted them to offer good executions for serious traders. I never lost so much money with bad executions since I am with IB ! At first , last week after I lost 10 grand in one day I felt I was going insane, I was so angry , but then I just became numb , depressed. It happened so quickly and it was so stupid I still can't believe it. It was all because of IB Tws and the popups, yes their POS software, supposedly a state of the art platform for professional traders. Well the idiots who designed this "trader workstation" have no idea what trading is about, they caused me to take my largest loss ever , and in one day ! On Tuesday morning around 7am ET I was short some 30 YG from the week before, I realized the market was going the other way and decided to get out before waiting for a loss. Around 7:30 as I prepared my order , gold started breaking out and I hit the transmit button, that's when I got a pop up window asking me whether I wanted to cancel my attached stop order or the order to cover just sent, wtf ! actually I am not sure what it asked because it went so fast , I was furious. But that was nothing compared to what happened next: in 5 seconds before the order was actually on the exchange, gold jumped 5 points and when all was done I had lost $5,200 ! I couldn't believe my eyes. I decided to follow my rules and keep trading that day, since this wasn't my fault . I would call the IB helpdesk at the end of the day to let them know what happened and see what kind of answer they would give. So on with my trading day , at some point stocks jumped sharply on some Grece related announcement if I recall, S&P made new highs and I made the mistake of going long (15 contracts) , I wasn't sure how far it would go but my risk was limited with that setup, or so I thought, because I didn't count on a repeat of what happened in the morning. I still see it happen before my eyes in slow motion, unbelievable. Shortly after noon, the market stalled and I didn't like what I saw , decided to get out with the very small profit I had. I prepared the order , using "close position", it definitely didn't look good , I hit Transmit. Bam ! S&P collapsed at the exact same time, while I saw the same pop up window that gave me a giant loss in the morning !!! I punched the keyboard first to accept cancelation of my stop, the second strike put a hole in it . ES went down 6 points in one minute . Another $4500 loss. All because of IB ill designed software. If you know a good securities lawyer, please PM.
Read the fine print that you electronically signed when you opened the account please. You do not have a leg to stand on here. Perhaps you should have paper traded Gold before losing your ass on a 30 lot.
Man up and take some responsibility for not knowing, understanding and using correctly the platform. IB has a demo that you can use before going live. Not their fault you have a lack of understanding of the platform.
I have been trading with IB for many, many years and I absolutely, positively would not trade futures with their platform. In fact, I don't think their TWS platform is all that good for trading stocks if you are getting in and out fast. I don't scalp stocks so for me the TWS is acceptable. If you are going to trade futures through them you have to get some sort of platform -- such as button trader -- that is suitable for trading futures where you need quick entry and exits. There are other futures trading platforms that you can use with IB but I'm not familiar with any of them because I don't trade futures through IB. Their commissions are too high in that market so I trade elsewhere. Jump ship with them if you trade only futures. There are many, many brokers who will give you a better rate and better software than IB.
There is nothing in your statement that implicates IB in any way. It is your resposibility to understand the software completetly before you use it for sizeable orders. All of the disputes you have are a part of the configuration settings available in the platform, i.e. you can customize most everything. No securities attorney will even look at your case. Mike
tell me if im wrong, but it does sound like you werent too familiar with their platform? if this is/was the case, trade in sim or with 1 lots until you are. either way, it does sound like a crappy platform. just keep it simple: buy & sell. you dont need all this 'transmit cover order' or what ever that pop-up box said. i appreciate some exchanges need a tag on the order message to state if you are initiating or covering a position, but the platform should do this for you. it sounds like this tws was designed by a developer not a trader. why not get an interface like ninja that traders seem to understand. better still, ditch ib.
You are better off practicing software features on a simulation account before going live. There are many frontends for IB as well, such as buttontrader, brackettrader, zerolinetrader, ninjatrader etc, many of them with free trials and simulation modes. http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=tws&p=d&ib_entity=llc
I have been trading YG ever since this contract was introduced so I know the in and outs of this market. I traded stocks with IB, I ^noticed their stops are not reliable, I am not sure why but a few times they did not trigger and I had to manually close the position. Just those blown stops cost me more than a thousand all in all I would say. But the 10 K i lost last week, I am fully counting on them to refund some of it in one way or the other. They owe me that money. The guy who designed TWS owes me 8,000 at least. It should be taken out of this dimwit's paycheck.