Could someone please explain to me why Ideal Pro in TWS closes for 15 min each day when the forex markets are 24hr? How does this work? Is this normal? Shouldnt it run straight through instead of closing for 15 min? Thanks MS
No clear answer to the nightly (12:15-12:20 AM to be exact) reset has ever been given to my knowledge. It makes no sense and is rather irresponsible to be honest to have planned outages (especially every night!) at anytime that the markets are open. I believe it is some antiquated procedure that they have done to clear up some memory leaks on their java server software. So rather than just fix whatever bug it is they reset everything as a workaround! I refuse to trade with IB at night because of this issue due to the fact that every so often the market feeds never reconnect properly after this reset. No other broker I've ever used has this kind of procedure so it must be related to IB's in house software and some issue with it.
Brocklanders Do you mind if i ask what products you trade eg - futures, forex etc? And what platform/ broker you are using? What I dont understand is if i am looking at daily bars on forex, do i need to get my orders in before the 5pm to 515pm reset and in that time, if i have my orders in, will they get filled? im guessing the orders would still be held at an exchange and get filled even if ib is in reset mode. If this is the case just makes it hard because i like to watch the final close of the daily bar. Thanks MS
MS, I guess we are talking about two different outage windows. I trade US futures mainly so the 5:15pm outage is entirely a non-issue for me. I was referring to their nightly outage which resets the market feeds every night for about 10-15 minutes of no connectivity. I don't know exactly what will happen if you try and submit an order during their outage windows but I sure wouldn't try it. Sometimes I've seen fills happen during the midnight outage window but their API did not correctly report a fill so it was a nightmare situation because my software did not detect a fill even though I had a position. This is why I do not ever trade during these outage windows nor at night either unless I happen to be up at midnight to monitor it personally. I trade on IB's platform during the day, it is adequate for what I need to do. I can't give you any guidance otherwise because I don't trade any forex overnight. Sorry.
Thanks anyway Brocklanders - I trade futures mainly also but doesnt hurt to have a look around at other products. Is there anyone out there that uses TWS for execution on forex trading off daily bars? Would be interested to see how you handle the 5 to 515pm close time. Thanks MS
I used to trade fx with IB during US overnight hours, last time this winter. I don't think much has changed since then. Here are my rules: 1) Reset at 17:00 - 17:15 ET. You can't trade, there are no b/a quotes. 2) Reset at 23:45 - 00:45 ET. Do not trade. The quotes can go into "pink mode" any time during this period. During any of the two reset periods avoid holding any positions with stops/targets that have likelihood of being hit during the reset. In theory, the orders are held on IB servers, are immune to the resets, and should be executed, but in real life it's not always the case. Some users were exploring a workaround by switching their login from American to Asian servers, but even this won't solve the problem because Asian servers are subject to similar resets, although the hours might be different. You can find an older thread about this using "search" feature.
great advice Kirk. I'll add that if you trade US products don't bother switching to their Asian servers. The reset times follow the individual markets so the feeds still have the exact same reset times no matter which server you are on.
What if you are trading longer term?? eg - daily or 4 hour charts? You couldnt cancel and then add profit targets/stop losses each time?
Anyone getting frequent DOM price update freezes with 925 and the latest 926? The hangs last 1-3 secs (no price/depth updates). Could not effectively scalp ES/6E/ZN this morning running 926, and quickly reverted back to 922. This appears to be a TWS software issue as 922 runs flawless.
No price freezes but I'm getting delayed acknowledgements and fills back from any futures market, GLOBEX, ICE, etc... as of this morning - was working perfectly yesterday (using 926). Has to be an IB issue because it's not specific to an exchange. The lag is somewhere around 5 seconds give or take; orders do appear to be routed immediately (I see them reflected in the quote instantly), but the acks and fills are getting kicked back late.