Brynno, I once heard an explaination as to why limit orders are faster than market orders but confess to not being able to remember the details at the moment. I have my hotkeys configured to buy the bid plus three cents and sell the offer minus three cents among other combinations. It will really speed up you execution and get you filled. Don't worry about over paying the limit will fill at the best ask available up to three cents above, so in a fast market you will usually still get filled. If the market moves away from you, I usually cancel the order and wait for a better entry point.
I have an IB account, I think fills are pretty realistic on the simulator....of course, the lower you go on the volume/liquidity totem pole, the more discrepancy there is. If you have to trade those lighter volume names, make a thread about execution through different ECN's and stuff. In fact, if you use the search feature and type in some keywords like "order routing", "ECN", "execution", there are plenty of threads about it.
thanks so much to you both for the fast replies even though i'm sure you'll have better things to do than worry about a complete stranger. i'll experiment with trying to configure my limit at a fixed amount (or preferably percentage?) above/below the bid/ask (or have i got that the wrong way round?) and assume that my simulated fills are realistic. finally - and i promise this is the last thing! - do either of you have any experience with IOCs ("immediate or cancelled")? could this be what i'm looking for? thanks and good evening/night bryn (no)
I've been completely unable to trade most stocks reliably in the first 15-20 minutes after the open in IB's simulated account. My orders don't fill. Price goes right thru my bid/offer, I can place a limit above the offer, or below the bid, nothing works in sim during those opening minutes. Futures (ES & CL for example) trade perfectly in sim any time of the day or night. I recommend you try your strategies live with very small size rather than testing stocks in the opening half hour with IB's sim account.
right!exactly! that's what i was hoping to hear. although Kedwards maintains that the fills on the simulator are realistic. Nodoji, have you never used the real live IB platform? Practicing with small amounts of money using the real thing would seem like the obvious thing for me to do, but then I suddenly thought, a few shares, or a few tens of shares, surely should fill more or less instantaneously in any case, so it won't really prove anything even if it does work (if all goes well I'll presumably be trading a few thousand at a time). anyway thanks nodoji for that glimmer of hope
Yes, I trade every day in IB's live account and have no problems at all. You can trade very small size, no problems. We tested our ATS with 20 share size, works fine.
ok just to confirm, you've used market orders at any time of the day including the first 5 minutes after the open and live executions are a lot faster than simulated ones? can i expect to be filled within 1-2 seconds even in the first 5 minutes even when everyone's trying to get their orders in? i'm talking about only 1000 shares or so, and liquid stocks. say.., anything that's in the s&p 500, for example. and market orders, not limit orders. oh and i don't mean literally the first few chaotic seconds; i'm particularly interested in the period from 2-5 minutes in. thanks!
Let me clarify. I use IB's Booktrader and I hit the bid or ask when I want in quickly. I've never had a problem with the speed of the fill, BUT if I'm chasing a momentum run, I sometimes get a partial fill and have to chase the rest.
right but when you say you sometimes get a partial fill and chase the rest, do you actually cancel it manually after only some of your order has been filled, or do you use something like an IOC or Market with Protection order so that they cancel it for you for your protection?
I just drag the LMT order on the DOM (BookTrader) to wherever price has gone. I trade momentum stocks, so sometimes the move is so quick I live with a partial fill because I don't want to chase past a certain point. We're talking AAPL, AMZN & POT. They can really get going, and they can also reverse on a dime and take you out, so I only chase a bit if partially filled.