During the last week I had big problems with IB (only in the first hour) ,bid and ask quotes were crossed ---no stop loss orders were activated and filled and during that time it was not always possible even to sell or buy market . after a few minutes it was possible again , but 10 min later it was again impossible . After about an hour everything works fine again. Overall I am very satisfied with IB ,thats why i do not want to change my Broker ---but under this circumstances daytrading is not possible . A friend of mine trading also from europe had the same problems,though IB said their systems are OK and working properly Has anybody experienced the same problems ? If yes what did you do to solve the problem ?? How can I switch the IB server ( from swiss to us )?? Good luck to all
I am a very happy IB customer, but, yes, I had some weard quotes too, in the morning that is. Also I was long ORLC and had a stop placed below lod, but it was not executed for at least 4 minutes while trading below the stop. (It was NOT a stop limit order!) Crossed quotes I have seen before this week, but I had only one bad execution. Oh well, I guess that's the name of the game
I haven't heard of any wide spread problems other than a late delivery of clearing files from OCC which cause a few hours delay of statements being issued. I suggest you send a mail to tac@interactivebrokers.com with your account # and times when you had problems. They'd be able to check into the details and report back with what they find. If there happens to be a server or traffic problem (which they should be on top of via the constant monitoring of the system), they'll be able to esculate it to the highest priority. BTW, I heard of this problem and it may help with speed/java problems that may arise on some video cards whose drivers create conflicts... Disable Direct Draw for the standalone TWS. (instructions below) Upgrade to the latest production version of Java Runtime. (1.4.1_03 .... I would not recommend the Beta 1.4.2 at this time) Upgrade to the latest video drivers for your hardware. To disable Directdraw for the Standalone TWS. To do this, right click on the Trader Workstation 4.0 icon and choose "Properties". Then click on the "Shortcut" tab. In the "Target" field add the following line before the -jar -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true So that the entire line looks something like this... (assuming that you have java 1.4.1_02 installed) (DO NOT CHANGE THE J2RE REFERENCE.. JUST ADD THE ABOVE LINE IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCATION IN THE STRING THAT ALREADY EXISTS ON YOUR MACHINE) "C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.1_02\bin\javaw.exe" -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -jar C:\JTS\jts.jar C:\JTS
I had the same problem and e mailed them. The markets were crossed and prevented you from placing orders. The answer from them was. They blame the other guy. Meaning it's not them but a bad ECN putting out bad quotes. So I then called up tech support. I told them the market rallies and you can't buy anything. When they go to sell off you can't get out. Ya can't trade at all. This went on all week. Their answer was as pat as the e mail. It' an ECN sending out bad quotes. Funny in this electronic age there is always somebody else to blame. When my DSL provider is sending me slow service. They tell me it's a Microsoft problem? I call Microsoft and they tell me they have nothing to do with the rate at which you receive data. When cable tv goes bonkers they tell me it's the power company?
THX def I will try your suggestion , unfortunately I had to say that my friend , and I got the same response from IB as moffitt ---thats not a good behaviour to customers who pay 1000 $ commissions each week !!!
I had the exact same issues friday morning with ORCL. I was long when the michigan numbers came out and when I tried to sell, the order froze up. Turns out the bid was stale and was crossing the market, I suspect it was a bad arca quote. I had to manually route the order to other ecns and it cost me a couple of cents. The bid problem cleared up a few minutes afterwards. I'm inclined to lean towards the idea that it was arca's fault since they are known for problems, but I really wish IB would change its routing algorithm. I mean if it sees that an order is not going through to a particular ECN, then cancel that order and step down to the next available price. This would get rid of the stale quote problem. Maybe IB could also had a trigger that this would only happen if the bid/ask prices were crossed.
I had the same problem with crossed quotes. I called IB and the told me that they were receiving bad quotes but my Mytrack quotes were being received properly. He gave me a solution around the problem... It seems that when the market is crossed the Smart algorithm will not allow any trading to be done. I guess that is why your trades and stops were not getting off. His suggestion was to route your order to a specific ECN and the the trade will happen. It worked for me. Good trading Cocobop
Crossed prices are a regular problem, on the qqq its very annoying. When the prices cross if you watch the last price they are always correct. If the prices are crossed for a nasdaq on smart I will usually add a quote and use island or instinet route, one of them will be correct. Maybe IB can try to detect the ECN thats crossing prices and block their quotes till it corrects. Occasionally nyse are crossed and I usually just wait it out.
I noticed the same thing friday on FRE although it was trading slowly. As mentioned above, this is common on the Q's