This might be a dump question, since I only use local brokerage and datafeed for the sake of accountability if shit happens.. How do IB work? Brokerage? with charting platform data feed? any server to ping? (I know this is lame, but damn, I trade with marketorders most of the time.. )
IB has a direct API connection to the exchange. The connection routes orders and also receives data directly from the exchange. Clients can choose to use IB's charting platform or any number of other 3rd party charting services/front ends such as quotetracker, button trader, etc. IB can't control the ping time from a clients ISP to our office but once an order hits our office the order is routed to the exchange as fast as 15 milliseconds.
IB is both quick and very reliable. I think I've seen two outages in the last two years and one of them was a deliberate shut down for a typhoon. Sierra Chart is a good charting platform to use with IB and I like zeroline trader for order entry and management ... button trader has more capability but is substantially more expensive. I still don't think volume will switch until tuesday morning (I rarely see it switch before the morning of the last trading day). Currently feb was at 843 for the last half hour vs 253 on march. But Monday will tell the story.
Hi Kiwi, Is this type of weather shut downs announced ahead of time? If yes, where is it announced? Thanks, redduke
Is IB still relatively fast when you are connecting from Western Canada? I heard that it takes snapshots of data and the data is a bit delayed...
Credit where due. IB 'gets it' regarding investing in infrastructure for execution speed. I was trading HSI with 2-300ms of ISP latency and was only at a slight disadvantage due to IB execution speed making up for ISP latency. My guess is that the local brokers underinvest in capacity and their clients lose out while inadequate server capacity checks their margin availablity (this, rather than internet infrastucture is the usual cause of observable execution latency). Also I found the 'snapshot' data approach to be much better than tick by tick with e.g. eSignal being about a minute behind in a fast market ( a long time in HSI). Bloomberg have a server located in HK so a large swathe of the professional market are getting prices with negligible lag. if you have data feed latency you are seeing prices that are longer current.
when a typhoon is approaching, the news services will report it. we endeavor to do our best to send out a bulletin. The hk observatory web site will also provide the information.
Def, will appreciate it if IB could send an alert if the trading schedule is changed in typhoon season, currently have to check HK observatory site from time to time then
Def, E Trade is marketing in HK, not sure they have an office in HK or not. Gonna start breaking into HK any time soon?