IB advertises that you can buy and sell across several accounts in a proportional manner. However, that only works if you buy and sell 100% of the shares all at once. So, if you accumulate $50k of AAPL and then you want to sell it in chunks, across the accounts, you end up with leftovers or sometimes even short a few shares. If you enter trailing stop for 50% of the shares and another trailing stop 50% of the shares, it doesn't pull and sell 100% of the shares that you bought, it leaves some leftover if you have an uneven amount. I have been round and round with them and they insist that it is not a problem but I don't want to have a bunch of random shares leftover, or worse, short shares. And I don't want to sell all the shares at once just because their system doesn't work properly if I don't. Makes me crazy!!!! And then they want to me to fill out some form to explain the problem to them after I have explained it several times on the phone. They previously claimed it was because my software wasn't updated but then I updated the software and it still did it. Their solution is to tell me to sell all the shares at once! GRRRR!!!!
If they're telling you to sell all of the shares at once, that makes no sense. Please keep us posted on the outcome with this one.
I'm not clear how you're entering the trades. Can you detail how each trade is entered and what you're specifying for each field? Bitching has it's place but first let's make sure it's not a setting you're somehow missing.
kgoodfl, This is a frequent complaint and misunderstanding in the allocation logic. If you use a group based on account financials for a specific amount of shares, we will allocate based on the available funds, net liq value, etc, at the time of execution. If you attempt to close the position using the same qty, or 50% of that qty, and the same logic, the allocation on the closing order may not be the same as the opening order. The smallest change in any of the accounts financials (smaller commission charge, different interest credits/debits) can cause this problem. The easiest solution is to use percent change for closing orders regardless of what profile or group you used to create the position. If this is not your issue, please send me a PM with your account details and I will figure out what the problem is. Sal
What is weird is that I traded forex with IB, and for some reason have weird positions like 3 AUD left over when I close out a trade. I then sell the 3, and a few days later it comes back.
I've got 500 yen, 2.5 Euros, and 77 Canadian $s in my account. I've even entered a trade for $1.50 to sell the 2.50 in Euros, and the zombie Euros will not die. I've read that Ideal (not Ideal pro) is supposed to be used for these leftovers . . . I don't know, maybe I'll get a check for 500 yen when I close my account.
Of course the problem is caused by IB, of course they will never ever admit to it, and of course never ever solve that issue. When you enter 100 XY with a profile of 60/40% of two accounts and even use the very same profile to exit all 100 again (so no partial exits at all) you will end up being 1 XY long in one acct. and 1 XY short in the other acct. every once in a while. Great as TWS is, if not set to show 0 positions, XY is not even shown at all. So you may not know for weeks that different accounts (held by different persons) hold a postion. And then, of course, they give you completly stupid explanations why this is not their fault but yours. Once you have proven tnat this is not true, they just make up another story. So you have to manually clear that 1 share positions at the worst fee (=the minimum one else would pay for maybe a hundred shares). So the guys at IBs helpdesk advice you to close out (or reduce) your positions by using the "all accounts" + "PctChange -100" method. But what they do not get, because they do not trade but making money from our trqdes, is that you cannot attach those exit ordes as brackets to your entries! Because you first need to have the position established, else the great advice of using PctChange for your essential and critical stop-loss orders, price based targets, time based exits, etc. simply gets rejected with an error! They managed to have bracket oders for stops etc.as child orders when uisng profiles, but not when using their recommended method to avoid there rounding problem! And noone there gives **** about it. Eecially not their excellent manager, Mr Joseph Leshinsky, who approves when his personell evidently tells false stories to their customers, who tells customers who called IBs European help desk, US help desk, opened tickets, wrote emails, etc. to be called back just to never here a word from them. He is the best example of a managere being in charge of customer care training IB personell to ignore complaints by all means.
BillCH, If there is a problem, we will fix it. Please PM me your trade details and account number and I will investigate the issue and resolve any problem. Making (incorrect) assumptions about how someone does their job and then posting them on a forum with their full name isn't professional or appropriate. Please PM me the details and I will thoroughly research the issue. Sal Recco