Hi Today I have lost the 10 % of my account. And it has not been my fault. The IB autoliquidating system has done his work. But why my positions were autoliquidated ? That is the interesting question. This product is current unavailable to clients classified as retail clients. And I am talking about the SPY. I needed to close a long Spy position due to an early assigment of some puts. But the system didn't allow me to enter the orders. And I was liquidated while I was talking with the Trading Desk. You wouldn't believe the lack of competence. That kind of things make me lose confidence in this broker.
Well I didn't explained my whole position. The liquidation has been on itm options too. I was trying to place a combo trade , selling SPY and selling puts. The system didn't allow it. I don't know why, as what I can see in other post the Spy is available to close position. When the system begins autoliquidating they mess with all the positions until there is margin compliance. It seems IB entered a new norm to his system without looking all the possible issues. thank you.
Are you located in Europe? If yes, read this ET thread: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/priips-kid-on-ib.322160/ It's affecting all traders in Europe. You are not alone.
Bummer, although I don't understand how auto liquidate could lead to you losing 10% of your equity in one day, especially with SPY...
I've actually run into variations of this issue recently....specifically this Friday, there is no way to exercise only a fraction of your option position, so I didn't have the margin to get out of the position and ended up paying some of the spread. (my intent was to short the shares, exercise 2x the contracts, sell and short again and repeat until unwound). The other time was similar--a Friday expiry swing for the fences went ITM--the whole position was auto liquidated before I could even trade against it because I didn't have the margin to take delivery (but could have on about 80% of the contracts).
I too don't understand how auto liquidate could lead to you losing 10% of your equity in one day, especially with SPY. Perhaps realizing an existing paper loss and paying a wide spread but certainly not creating it.
Sorry for your loss. But a very important lesson that often comes with big losses, is to never trade something that you don't completely understand. What you don't know can really hurt you.
The autoliquidation could lead to a much more than 10 % lose in one day.I am talking from my experience. It deppends on what are they liquidating. It is not the SPY it is the Spy options that are very dangerous when liquidating , specially if they are itm options. So imagine that scenario. I have to sold Spy and sold itm options in order to restore the margin compliance. But I am not allowed to enter a combo order with SPY and options on Spy. If I only sell the Spy the risk of the position increases. The system doesn't allow me to do that. I have to do it with a combo order. I have done it a lot of times. But today it was not possible. And while I was on the phone talking with them , the sytem autoliquidated Spy and other option positions. When they do that, they sell on bid and buy on ask. I have some short options on Spy yet, and probably it is going to occur the same thing if they are early assigned. Yes, I could close them now. But I am not seeing why IB is not allowing combo orders if those orders are to close the assigned spy. In the trading desk they could not explain why.