It does not need to have to be mighty quick. All it needs is all those limit orders out at those exchanges and at that moment IB for one reason or another loosing contact with the exchange and not knowing what orders are being filled. I'll leave it to yourself to determine the likelyhood of this scenario. (And it does not need to be necessarily either the exchange or IB's fault, all it need is problems with the connection due to a digger cutting through the cable or whatever - and do not say it is impossible, dad had it happen and I have seen it happen here in NZ, resulting in half a day's outage) Maria
I see what you're saying.. and yes, under some circumstances it could happen.. In my case though the indivudual positions are so small in relation to my account, and the orders so far from market, that it's never happened to me yet (or even come close). Plus, all orders have very tight stops attached from the start, so extreme moves just leave me with a string of tiny losses, which are normally compensated by some big winners on the opposite side.. as of this morning I've got $2.1m of outstanding orders on a $30k account...though that includes oca pairs on around 50 open positions, and brackets on the new opening positions... so in fact I've only got new position orders in for around $300k worth of stock, against a margin buying power of nearly $100k. I've NEVER had more than 20% of my new position orders execute in a given day, plus, since each position is so small, I can monitor and liquidate exisiting losing positions as neccessary to free up cash if I need to. All I can say is it works. I pay a lot in commisions since I regularly buy and sell hundreds of tiny lots (as low as 5 shares for something like google), but with the number of trades I'm dealing with things smooth themselves out somewhat.. I do take in you advice in though. and will be watching carefully.
oops... typo.... that's 1.2m, not 2.1 m in pending orders, so new position orders are barely above my buying power.. still, I'd have hit the max order limit today, so thank you IB for your quick response in removing the limit. :up: