Well my circumstances are going to be of very limited benefit to others for a number of reasons, (a) I trade EOD stocks on the ASX (b) I trade from a Super account, USA equivalent would probably be an IRA Account and this has certain conditions which hamstrings trading (c) I use Amibroker as my main analysis platform but source info from a wide variety of other places, Barchart, Googlefinace, Yahoo, Commsec for live data and watchlists, Norgate for download data, Investsmart, AFR (Australian Financial Review), WSJ.com, Marketindex.com, and Walt Disney where I play the mickey.
Show me another retail accessible broker with a complete API and FIX access where you can trade so many markets with decent (but not cheap) commissions. Or are you suggesting pros trade only one market? And as we all know, real pros use Amibroker and Google Finance.
Well I never said I was running a rolls royce system, if you have ever traded from Australia, you would know that the trading infrastructure on offer here is exceedinly poor, limited and controlled in the most part by the big 4 banks. We are hamstrung unless one wants to open overseas bank accounts and then you get currency and taxation issues. As for IB and getting back on subject, it's a trading platform which is overcomplicated and attempts to be all things for all people, a circus of juggling performers, yes it does offer many benefits, but it carries major flaws, has done for many years and it is not what I would call quality, data corruption is a problem which is poison for a trader.
The data issues here are split adjustments from over two decades ago. But I agree that there are several issues. Some I have brought to IB's attention and are still up after a year. IB is only overcomplicated if you're a point-and-click trader and that's what you expect. Can you give an example what makes it overcomplicated and a circus? I don't use some of the tools they offer, options analysis for example but it doesn't mean it turns the platform into a circus...
Well in my opinion, IB has created a minefield wrapping everything into one package. A better way is to offer everything in modules, if you trade Options, then trade the Options module, Futures, then the Futures module...etc.
What about the many people who trade multiple instruments? I have ETFs and futures open on the same page, I would hate it if for some silly reason they'd make me separate those. You're free to separate instruments yourself as much as you like but you're not forced to do so. IB's whole selling point is having everything in one place, that's how they advertise themselves.
What about the many people who only wish to trade single instruments....? The argument can go on and on... I think we have hijacked this thread enough, cheers.
People who trade a single instrument are free to do so. I still fail to understand what hindrance there is. If you trade futures then you don't need to touch the options components, the features can actually be disabled in TWS. It's best to get to the bottom of the complaints instead of throwing generalisations. Otherwise we're just going to end up debating whether the logo is too red.
Market data feeds can be fragmented... I have found that two separate vendors can both accurately show two different sets of OHLC values for the same candle because their data is comprised of a different subset of trades on the market; although I don't think that would explain what you're seeing, and I'd totally expect a major broker like IB to have accurate price data. I'm curious what their support team says about it - maybe they have a known issue with that particular symbols data? Do you see this on more than one symbol?
It might be possible to manually adjust for splits. I haven't looked into it at all, but this page: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/...ebook/technicalanalytics/chart_parameters.htm Describes some options to show splits and dividends on the chart. Therefore, maybe the date of splits and dividend issues can be pulled through the API and then you manually post-process the prices. Although, I agree that there should be a way to pull the adjusted prices. I've mentioned this on here before, but when I first started using IB's TWS, I hated it. I think for the first two years of being an IB customer, I used IB's WebTrader exclusively. I also hated their mobile app. Now, I far prefer TWS to the WebTrader and I think IB's mobile trader is about on par with ThinkorSwim mobile. So there is a bit of a learning curve with the platforms. I think the WebTrader could be made a lot better. Compared to TWS, it's a lot slower for pulling options chains and a good model of what to build would be TastyWorks. They did a good job with their web trading platform.