IB Slow to enable strikes in futures options

I was pretty frustrated on Thursday and Friday when I was unable to enter at-the money option orders in S&P 500 EMini and Crude futures after these markets fell into an area where the strikes were trading widely for the first time. (Orders for higher-up strikes were fine).

This prevented me from entering spreads. I spent hours trying to explain this to them Thurs night and Friday.

Now, on Sunday night, some of these are fixed. But I have missed the opportunity to buy at the time I wanted to and lost profits.

I wonder if IB could consider an approach that enabled these automatically, not 2 days after they become widely used. Otherwise this is a disadvantage of using IB. (Granted there are lots of advantages).


"BUY 5 CL NOV08 81.0 CALL Fut. Option (LOX8 C8100) 2.90"
COULD NOT VALUE THIS CONTRACT AT THIS TIME

"BUY 1 ES OCT08 870.0 CALL Fut. Option (ESV8 C0870) 60.00"
COULD NOT VALUE THIS CONTRACT AT THIS TIME

 

Have had issues with feeds not sending Level II DOM for ES option chains. Using TT and OEC feeds.. The Feeds appear to only represent the market makers current bid/ask and no other depths. Contacted CME directly and opened up a support ticket a few weeks back on this same issue.

Attached is a screen shot of a worksheet we utilize to evaluate option chains from a few minutes ago.

Missing strike data, Bid quantity and ask quantity set to MM's default 50 increments. last thursday and friday this table was so far out of whack... lagging / bad data / no updates.

As far as I know TT & OEC broadcast the CME data unfiltered.

 

just remember that the market makers are real people in high volatile they are not stupids.....

 

Thanks for the comment.

But there were trades taking place in the strikes I was trying and bids and asks were being quoted. So I am not sure if this was the same problem or not.

In any case. when data is imperfect, shouldn't IB make an intelligent model-based calculation as to the margin required so as to allow the trade to take place, rather than locking the user out completely?

 

Minor correction, these were SELL's not BUY's.

 

Hi PocketChange-
Did you create that options layout or is it canned from somewhere? I want to develop more options functionality for myself and the group I trade with so I'm investigating the futures options screens already on the street. do you have any opinions there?

 

Just Excel using DDE and RTD feeds.