Hello, TWS has an option to prevent certain positions from getting closed first in case of an auto-liquidation. It's great for illiquid stuff you definitely don't want to be closed first. Right click on a position and "set liquidate last"... However, you can't use this option with combos like futures calendar spreads. The field is grey and even if I try to set both legs as "liquidate last", it is also grey. Is there something to change in configuration? If it is not the case, why is it impossible to set combos as "liquidate last"?
Not that I am very knowledgeable on this, somebody else might have a better answer, but I believe it is the way that IB does spreads. Like through CQG as an example you can trade the native spread basically like its own product. IB is different on that if I'm not mistaken so it treats it like two completely different positions. Not sure on a workaround though. I've only used that feature for some illiquid bonds I had that fluctuated significantly all the time
What I do is just make rows for each individual leg of the spread, and set those to liquidate last individually.
In my TWS the Liquidate Last is greyed out for both my SPX option box spreads, and for the individual option legs. Is anybody here able to set Liquidate Last on single SPX options, combinations, and/or individual legs of combinations? I only trade combinations so I can't verify for single options.
Expanding the box spread to show its individual legs doesn't work. You have to navigate through the option chain to create a whole separate row in TWS for each of the individual legs, and then you can set each of those to liquidate last. Would be a nice quality of life feature to let us set liquidate last on all the legs of a combo at once.
I just tried and it works, thanks! But this is one of the biggest insanities that I've seen so far. I have to manually replicate each leg as a separate line item, then set Liquidate Last on it, then the Liquidate Last symbol mysteriously appears on the leg under the combo, not the line that I created as replica. Do you know if there is any quicker way to replicate the legs than going through the Strategy Builder or the Options selector that appears when you right-click on an empty line and select Options? Like is there a way to copy-and-past existing lines in TWS, or a quicker way to manually enter options with expiration and strike using symbols? thanks!
Ok so the quickest way that I found is this: 1. Open Strategy Builder; 2. with the mouse, move each leg from the Portfolio window to the "Trading" section of the Strategy Builder; 3. Click "Add to quote panel" in Strategy Builder, and prompted to add all legs, click "yes"; 4. In the quote panel of Strategy Builder, right-click each leg and select Liquidate Last. That will set the Liquidate Last flag also on your legs in the Portfolio window. Insane! Would be happy to hear if someone finds a quicker way.