Right, and infact that is exactly what they are going to get with such a limitation: people asking glass of tap waters. Assume a fund (not even a big one) wanted to perform some tests and strategy simulations (perhaps using multiple automated instances) for a period before committing the real thing. Or similar scenarios. 100K are surely the ideal amount .... ;-) yes for a fund of consisting of a couple glass of tap water and toothpicks ;-)) I would really suggest to delete this absurd limit (let the user specify whatever he needs: it's just paper!), which would only hurt IB business, with no shred of advantage whatsoever, and let's say it a was just a misunderstanding ... Let's devote that programming time to more useful features, like for instance an account view to the Gateway or making the autologoff optional (don't dare propose more ideas) ... Tom
I don't like IB for futures. I like their execution for stocks all right, but PFG will give you a real time simulated datafeed for 30 days. Use that. They give you a $50,000 account and if you work in Multicharts even if you don't want to use PFG Multicharts works with IB, too. If the implementation was a problem you don't have much experience managing technical issues because you will not have everything working even when you do get to the point where you think you ought to be trading with real money. What are your strategies results? And have you been able to match them? If you reset your account I think you lose your results, and since you are hogging bandwidth it's pretty funny that they know it is less likely for you to become a customer when you can't even implement your own strategy.
or better yet, charge a resonable fee for a paper account. You sound like a reasonable man who has knowledge of computers and exchange data feed fees. If you and I were to go into business together offering paper traders unlimited access and account size, how much would we have to charge a paper trader?
Nothing, because that is not your core business as a broker. If you need to charge that, then it's better that you close the business. At least this is the way as i would do it, if i should embark in such enterprise (with the right capital). There are even some "brokers" who think they can make money on API. Another one i saw placed a limit of a week (rotfl) while creating a trading system takes many years, and is actually mostly a service which favors primarily the broker. I call it "business stupidity" The result is practically none uses their systems. The purpose of a paper trading facility is to make the investors confident before committing real resources or providing the developers a structure for test and simulations of trading operations with that given broker. There is an unbelievable number of tiny details which need to take care when developing serious systems, and it may take many years to get it right. There must be no hindrance toward the final goal, which is to attract funds and investors who confidently invest their money. And know exacly the risk. In general and especially COMPARATIVELY (good execution + paper trading + api) IB has been doing very well so far (apart that i would probably cut the heads of some programmer over there ;-))), and that is also the reason of its vast success. But when i see something that hurts their own business, i do try to raise a flag. <b>It does not take much to destroy even a good company with a series of wrong choices</b>. If you have reached success with some choices, stick with those: don't disappoint your users. If you could afford them before (when starting up), you can afford them later (when having success): don't be stupidly greedy. As i many times have said i have always considered this broker overall among the best (and that is why i also invested heavily in it), but that is also the reason i get pretty disappointed and upset when i see something which does not meet the expectations and actually hurts their prospectives. (Also i know well many technical aspects and details that could be improved as i work daily with many of their clients or interested interests and i know pretty well what helps and what does not.) Tom
yeah well, the fact that you will probably die before you ever come up with a consistently profitable system isn't really much of a concern to me. If I am a broker I make my money from traders with real money. Kind of hard to make a living from dreamers. Maybe you should apply to the government for a grant. They are always pissing away real money on dreamers. And if you are a salesman, there is no better client than the government. They are not just individually gullible (which is hard to sell) but collectively gullible (which is very easy to sell.) at anyrate, the guy who comes up with the system you are searching for will quickly become the richest man in the world
As we are at it, there is also another important problem which affects automated trading. In the last few days (say from end of january), i have noted significant differences in the behavior of the <b>IB Gateway</b>. First of all, the Gateway has a significant higher number of disconnections (previously they where rather rare, outside of maintenance and never asked again for "challenge") BUT what is really bad is that now it asks again and again the numerical passwords even several times a day (while the gateway remains up). Practically, i am consuming all my electronic device battery in reconnections and "challenge" responses (I am talking of a "real" account, real money), let alone the hassle of these useless continuous resubmissions of credentials operation, which practically makes automated trading a nightmare. It is important that once i have logged, the Gateway <b>never challenge me again as long as i do not shut it down</b>, as this defy the purpose itself of the Gateway, to provide a stable "gateway" for autotrading applications. Now, you put together the impossibility for some people with just decent capital to simulate (just 5 contracts of crude oil and gold would be enough: not talking of large orders with hundreds of contracts) and assess strategies, with these new problems with automated trading (real account), and you rapidly get a scenario where the best money and best prospects will rapidly disappear, clearly. In addition if you change something in the system (like introducing important limits (provided they made any sense)), <b>i expect to be notified before you do, so i can adjust my actions</b>. Now, let us know if you have changed policy and target, so we can all reconfigure. Tom
I agree with Tom (fullAutoTrading). It is extremely important that IB keeps a dialog with clients who use IB for auto trading purposes. It is crazy if they make changes on the back end without notifying - there are many clients who rely on software vendors such as Tom who has real money on the line. If Tom is unable to adjust is software before changes made by IB, then there could be real situations where people will lose money. As for changes, please remove the Auto Log Off in TWS - this is highly annoying "feature". Also, create a simple view in the IB Gateway so current positions can be viewed. Alternatively, make sure you can logon to TWS on any other machine to monitor what's going on in your account if you have an auto trader using IB Gateway. Jens
50K ? I don't know what you are talking about. I have made several threads here (journals) showing performances of various algorithms in the years. See links to threads on my webpage. When you develop heavily it's normal that occasionally you want to clean up your environment. About implementation, the platform is used now by several hundred people around the world and this happened just in few months, now with an exponential growth. Tom