First, I am an IB customer and generally have a favorable opinion of IB. However, if you start up TWS and log on as: username: edemo password: demouser you are logged into IB in a demo mode with a bold heading that the data is 15 delayed. If only it were that simple. The problem is not that its delayed, the problem is that there is next to no volume and next to no trades. If your intention is to do simulated trading with 15 minute delayed quotes, look elsewhere. I tried this with a number of stocks (IBM, MSFT, MRCK) and a future (YM). But may be well known, but it was a surprise to me. Too bad this doesn't work like it first appears.
There are a couple of things that IB could improve and one of them is the TWS Demo. The best solution would be to set it up using real market data from the previous day. This way you would have something to compare it to. With more and more people developing products for the API they should improve it to make it more realistic. Runningbear
I would like to support this. We are an ISV and we need a realistic data feed to test our software connectivity with IB (we have many IB users among our customers). It would be much better if IB provides a complete data feed for a few test symbols (equity, futures, option and forex) instead of many symbols with fake unrealistic data. We have also noticed that IB has disabled market depth in the demo. Not good at all Cheers, Anton
Yes, the demo is lame. Use a third party package that includes a good simulator, like NinjaTrader perhaps. Its simulator appears to be free and I've heard good things about it. Never used it myself.
I think the DEMO is just perfect for what it does, showing TWS functions and allowing test orders via the API. If IB starts to offer free data via the demo for non-customers i'd really be concerned about their bandwidth.
Another idea that would make IB even better would be the ability to set maximimum position size for a given symbol from the user's Account Maintainance page. With one of my previous futures brokers, i could set a maximum contract number for a given symbol that was less than my maximum margin would allow. If your autotrading several strategies over several products, this functionality can be a really important protective feature. Both for testing and actual trading. If your system accidently sends multiple buy orders it shouldn't, your maximum exposure is still limited. In fact I'm surprised they offer the API, without this added layer of protection. It protects the client and in turn the broker. How about it IB? Runningbear