Is there any way to set an offset on the limit price based off the current ask/bid price? In other words, if the stock is trading 25x25.10, can I enter an offset ahead of time to place the buy at 25.25 (or +.15) for example? The reason I'd like to do this is to QUICKLY get the trade transmitted, and be sure that stock movement won't result in my limit buy getting missed in a fast moving stock. Thanks
yes, it's easy, download the latest version, and then you set up a hotkety, buy limt ask plus .15, or any other possible situation you want, You can have as many hotkeys as you can remember. It aint going anywhere, try buy limit bid minus .25
Couple other things you can try: instinet pegged market (your order is pegged to buy on the best offer or sell on the best bid). relative order (i think this is what you are after): here's an example: "if the market is $50-50.25 for company XYZ and a customer enters a buy relative offset of $.10, the order would be submitted at $50.10. If the market moves to $50.11-50.36 within 5 seconds on the same exchange, the bid would be resubmitted at $50.21. If the order is not executed in 5 seconds and the market moves to $50.15-50.40, the order is resubmitted at $50.25. If the order is still not executed within 5 seconds and the market moves down to $50-50.25, the buy order is left at $50.25." more info is at: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/html/tws/relative_orders.html Scale orders: specify the total amount to be bought or sold at successively decreasing or increasing price intervals
why dont you just enter an order at the market to buy. my experience is i would rather get an occasional bad fill than miss the move cause of "screwing around" with limit orders or othewr fancy stuff.
My experience with previous brokers is that limit orders get much faster execution than market orders. I don't know if this is the case with IB or not since I just opened the account and have not traded yet.