I'm fairly new to Options trading in general, as well as TWS. Right now, I'm just paper trading. I've opened 3 positions that I wish to place Take-Profit orders on. However, the process is confusing. I don't find TWS to be particularly intuitive or user-friendly. Let's take my position in QQQ as an example... - I opened a Bull Put Spread and took in a credit of $1.20 - Let's say I want to take profits at the 50% mark (.60) - I right-click on the order and choose 'Close' which populates the Order Entry window - I click on the Advanced button, check the Profit-Taker box, set my limit price (.60) and click Submit However, this Order Rejected window then pops up with this error... I know it's because I didn't specify a value on the main Order Entry window. However, if I have to specify my Profit-Taker price there first why bother using the Attach Stop Loss/Profit-Taker/Bracket section at all? I might as well just specify my Profit-Taker price in the OE window, press the Submit button, and fill the order. Am I missing something? Am I doing it wrong? If so, what is the proper way to place a Profit-Taker order without the redundancy/duplicity?
Have a look at brackets orders. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/campus/trading-lessons/bracket-orders-for-tws-mosaic-2/
If i recall correctly, profit taker is just a bracket you put on when you put the initial trade on. Once you have the trade, you wouldn't use that. You would just click on the position and put a limit price on it by typing it in or choosing drop down prices I believe.
OK. So, I guess the way I initially described the procedure is correct. I don't know how you would place both a Stop and Take-Profit order simultaneously, though. I just watched this guy's YouTube video and he said if you place the Take-Profit order and then try to place a separate Stop order for the same Option it won't allow you to do it. I'm guessing the same would apply if you placed the Stop first and then attempted to place the Take-Profit order second.
You would want to place a bracket order before opening the position. The bracket then includes both the opening order, plus the (multiple) closing order(s). But in your case you already have an open position. The error message refers to an incorrect price. I'm not familiar with options and don't know if there is a maximum bandwidth around the current market price for which prices are allowed. If your desired closing price is too far away then the order gets rejected by IB.