larry, In this case your point is "not good" (i say this in the nicest possible way). The reason it is not good is that the majority of the data is already being provided by the backfill facility. This request is only to include the "transactions" field along with volume for each bar. So no significant extra data load is involved and no major changes are implied. IB just have to calculate the transactions (as every charting program does with their real time data) and add it into the data stream ---- I think the field may even be there already. So its more utility at virtually no extra cost. I do agree with the stability and speed over extra features view though. kiwi
Kiwi trader is right. The entire feed and API become a lot more user friendly and valuable to the trader if this change is implemented. Runningbear
You can do market profile style activities now using the excel dde capability to create volume at price profiles and then move it forward as time intervals pass. I experimented with it and we published a crude version at: http://www.teddyscciroom.com/cci/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=115
Kiwi: I gotta agree with Larry. I would stop any form of backfill if I were IB. Can't figure out why you guys just don't put up a little bit of dough to buy the backfill in other places. OldTrader
Old, Thanks for the opinion but I dont think IB are about to stop supplying backfill (but it should be ok to u if it comes from a different server and doesnt affect your real time trading datastreams and computer speed). I think they need to do some of these things to stay ahead of their competition --- so I would encourage them not to forget reliability, speed, and price as key differentiators while they improve things. My issue is not whether they supply backfill or not. That seems to be a given so to me its a question of 1) if they can do it without harming the basic operation, and 2) if they could do it with as much good information as reasonable. IMO and many others, if you have backfill then you should also include the transaction information. Wouldnt you agree that if they are going to send a packet with 30-60 bytes of header, open, high, low, close, volume, time etc etc ... it wouldnt do any harm to also have the number of transactions that made up that bar included (less than 5% more data at a guess)? It really has no impact on non-users, it just seems to have been forgotten. I support your implied view that the backfill and charting should not impact non-users and would encourage IB to supply backfill data off a different server if they dont already do so.
Old, I just checked using Tesseract and when I am normally online to IB I use gw1.ibllc.com.hk ... my trading server. When I do a backfill two new servers that I had not seen previously came up (not the ones I saw when I had a US based account). I checked the routing and it appears that even though I trade from IBs HK servers I get my backfill from a server in New York. So it looks to me as if IB is doing their best to look after our interests here.
Thanks for the response, and for injecting some facts into the situation. LOL! I guess I'm quite mistrusting of anything that IB does that might affect the platform in a negative way, whether I actually know any real facts or not. Your facts though have reassured me on that score. Given what you have said, I don't see why they wouldn't consider adding the info that you mention. My understanding is that IB is providing info in "packets". Wouldn't that affect the viability of the info you want? OldTrader
It only changes how fine it is really. Then its up to the charting provider to interpret the data .... all I am looking for is an approximation so that my mas on my tick charts could start from "about" the right point.
Sending extra trade information shouldn't degrade performance at all. If you want something to complain about it's those stinking integrated charts that tws has. What a bloated pig tws has become since adding that feature. How about a TWS version that is lean and mean, no charts, full backfill functionality!