Well, yesterday (Thu) in the pre market, IB showed my order as working on ArcaEdge with a Smart routed order. Today (Fri), Smart routed order is shown as working at Knight. I didn't know Knight will fill pre-market, but I assume that must be the case. And a manually routed ArcaEdge shows as working too. So this would seem like it's fixed. This would be great! Except, I cant find an active stock on ArcaEdge this morning to verify that a 500 share limit order shows up in ArcaBook correctly... Does anyone know a good tool to hunt down an active ArcaEdge stock pre-market?
Now that the market is open, I tried ArcaEdge routing again -- it immediately shows up in the ArcaBook. So my presumption is that pre market orders on ArcaEdge are still not really working despite showing Green as my tests pre market did not show up in the ArcaBook. I guess I was too enthusiastic at seeing the Green and the issue is still being worked. I will continue to test and report any changes in status. I guess not too many others trade OTC BB issues pre market? I just want to be ready for the next news event in one of the companies I follow.
I'd like to hear more about this too. I've have never got an order to route thru Arca at IB before normal trading hours, even after checking GTC, and unchecking regular hours. Even if I specifically select ARCA instead of SMART, I still cannot get a buy order to add liquidity to get filled after 4:15 am.
Actually in my experience, Arca orders (for listed & GMS issues) work fine at IB. I've done this many times. An easy way to test is, put in a buy or sell limit order at a price you'll recognize, way outside the market (so you don't care if it gets filled) for 100 shares of a NYSE/AMEX/GMS issue, destination Arca, RTH not checked, not hidden, not ice berg... Go to the Web ArcaBook http://datasvr.tradearca.com/arcadataserver/JArcaBook.php and you should see your order. If it shows in the ArcaBook, then it's live at Arca.... so if there's a match, you will get a fill. See the attached image showing an example of this I entered with GS at 7:40AM ET with the entry highlighted. It's OTCBB issues at ArcaEdge that isn't working. There are at least three problems in my most recent tests: 1. If I put in an order after the premarket sesion has started, it shows as green, but is not in the ArcaBook. It appears in the ArcaBook at 9:30. 2. The RTH checkbox is disabled for OTCBB issues. [TWS may need a fix?] 3. If I put in an order the night before, it shows as blue and remains blue until 9:30, when it turns green and also appears in the ArcaBook. It feels like there's an assumption somewhere that non-RTH is not allowed for OTCBB issues.
Here is the story. When we introduced ARCAEDGE, the exchange had a bug that forced us to send orders that were good only for the core session (RTH). We are contacting ARCA to see if they have fixed this bug. If so, we will enable the orders to trade in the preopen, core, and extended hours sessions. We will also enable RTH support so that you will be able route your orders for the core session only. There is also a compliance issue whereby we will not route an OTCBB order without having three MM quotes. Therefore, we will not route an OTCBB order without having market data from the OTCBB montage.
Thanks for the update! Ah so the story is always more complex involving other systems' bugs, etc. On the 3 quote rule, maybe it's just ArcaEdge marketing propaganda, but I recall their literature saying they had the option of having their trade support team help insure compliance. I just looked up the blurb from their page on NYSE: """ ArcaEdge will assist you with NASD's Three Quote Rule. To assist you in following applicable regulations, the ArcaEdge trade support staff will use reasonable diligence and exhaust all efforts to find the additional quotes required before executing client orders. That means we will obtain the necessary quotes on your behalf before executing an order. These quotes can be provided to you upon request. """ Doesn't say whether this can be automatic before a match or whether it means someone needing quotes can call their desk for help though... whether it's only for matches routed out of ArcaEdge (which I know IB won't use as IB can do that directly), etc. Devil's in the details. But practically any issue I've looked at had a decent # of quotes in the Montage on both sides.
Ran into a new issue with GTC orders on ArcaEdge this week (ticket filed), but the incident reminded me of this thread. Did IB/NYSE ever work out the issues so we can trade outside-RTH on ArcaEdge soon? I got another 1.5 months to the next "event" in an OTCBB stock of interest but thought I'd follow up and ask.