IB order question -- basic stuff

Discussion in 'Interactive Brokers' started by chanelops, Aug 4, 2009.

  1. This is a pretty simple question, and hopefully has a simple answer.

    I want to protect an existing position with a trailing stop, and I also want to have a profit target, at which point the position will automatically exit.

    Setting both of those up is pretty easy, but my question is, how do I do it so that when either one of those is triggered, the other is cancelled?

    I would have thought a trailing stop would automatically cancel when the underlying position is no longer there, but apparently that is not the case at IB.

    I'm sure there's probably an easy way to do this, since it's pretty basic stuff. Any guidance would be appreciated.
     
  2. In TWS there's a OCA feature (one cancells all). You can put in 2 or more orders with the same reference and when one executes, the others cancel. You can also set it up so that if you have only a partial execution, the other orders either completely cancel or are proportionately reduced. Look for this feature in their on-line documentation.
     
  3. great reply thx !
     
  4. Thanks, Hurricane.

    I also found out that there's a Bracket type of order, which automatically places a profit target and a stop loss when the main order is filled. These two orders are associated with each other in an OCA group, and if one fills, the other cancels. And the stop order can easily be changed to a trailing stop, which is what I wanted.

    This seems like a slightly more automated way to do the same thing you were suggesting, but I think either way would work.

    Thanks again for the reply.