I occasionally try routing orders using a route other than "smart". Today, I tried buying MSFT thru ARCA with a limit order, and it immediately kicks back with "Invaid Order", and it was cancelled. I have tried with Redi also, sometimes it works, and other times it just cancels for no reason. What am I missing? Does IB just want you to place orders with "Smart" all the time?
About 4 weeks ago, I started experiencing very poor results with IB's routing mechanism. All of my problems involve the ARCA ECN. Lately I am lucky to get any fills from ARCA. For example, this evening I wanted to buy 100 shares of TXN at the price of $23.80. There was a 1,000 share offer of TXN on ARCA at the price of $23.80 and it was the best offer. I first tried using SMART routing and my order first went to ARCA and then got rerouted to REDI. When I tried buying the 100 shares directly from ARCA, my order immediately went red and I got a dialog box saying "Invalid Order." Note that I verified this 1,000 share offer at $23.80 actually existed by checking several different quote sources. This problem has happened to me more than a hundred times in the past 4 weeks. I just can't get fills on ARCA (either through direct or SMART routing) - very frustrating. It has gotten to the point where I have no faith at all in any quote on ARCA because I most likely will not be able to take it. Note that I mostly trade in pre and post-market. ARCA routing is so unreliable that I would almost rather IB remove ARCA altogether than keep it the way it is. I have notified IB several times over the past few weeks about the problem but no luck so far. Your problem could either be the problem I am experiencing above, or it could be that ARCA or REDI are not the NBB or NBO when you submit an order directly to them. In that case, I believe the order will be automatically cancelled. This has something to do with the change they made in their ARCA and REDI routing a long time ago. It used to be that you could send an order to REDI or ARCA and those ECNs would use their own smart routing to match other ECNs. But then IB had to pay multiple ECN fees in this case (the cost was too high?). So IB changed the type of order that was submitted which prevents the order from being rerouted to another ECN other than the one specified. And since ARCA and REDI detect a better price elsewhere, they will try to reroute your order but IB specifies this should not happen. Thus it is an "Invalid Order." At least that is my basic understanding of what is going on. Carl
ARCA was out today due to a network problem. check the TWS bulletins. I agree, though, in that ARCA is not as fast as island or instinet.
I have been having this problem for 4 weeks. ARCA was up and working for pre-market and post-market today and I had several orders that did not get filled during this time. It is not a question of being fast or not - it is a question of it actually giving me a fill. I rarely get filled through ARCA anymore in pre and post-market even though the shares are there to be taken (especially on listed stocks). Something doesn't seem to be working with IB's routing logic. Carl