In my IB SIMULATED account I have been trading a strategy using gold futures.At the start of the year I started with $100k and had the account up to $300k which I thought was pretty good for three months trading.However I was not paying attention when the current gold swoon began and my gains were wiped out before I began to consider closing my positions.I decided to do nothing so as to observe how the IB computers delt with such a situation.As gold continued down the IB computers did close my positions but I was surprised to see,at the end,that the account ended up owing IB $27k.My thinking is that this is not good and I have to hope that this would not happen with a real account.Do IB need to do some more work on the simulated account to make it realistic?Or is there a real problem.
IB sim is a duplicate of your real thing. You did not give detail of your "event", so it is not fair to speculate a problem. Any comments to your "question" is pure conjecture. The basic rule of thumb is, if you hold a position over night, and the contract/stock gap opens, you can get into a deficit situation. And it has nothing to do with IB's computer or compliance. Ultimately you are responsible to manage your position.
Ultimately you are responsible to manage your position. Tums,thats the point.I was IRRESPONSIBLE!So what if there is a violent market event and there are LOTS of irresponsible traders?Hasnt IB been implying that their business is safe because of their aggressive margin rules?I dont want this classified as another IB bashing thread.If there is this problem then all brokers must have it?I want to better understand what my own risks are.You seem to say if major markets gap down overnight then margin rules cannot protect brokers .