Me too. I am longtime client, and the auto-liquidation is good. With a ironclad guarantee that it works logically. That didn't happen, and people who fucked up (IB) should now make the customer whole. If they can't program one that doesn't do this, then they should not be using one. We the clients are not beta-testers of buggy software
i reread op's original post. it does not say that he didn't have other positions. if pricing of fully paid for vertical spread created a liquidation issue then it becomes IB's problem. if the stock position created an auto liquidation the answer is the same because even if ib has the legal right to close option position people will eventually not have mixed accounts. it is hard to believe that ib would liquidate options to meet problems resulting from stock issues. the op needs to clarify .
IB liquidation bots had no understanding of option spreads some years ago. It is really bad that it still has not fixed it. If those who suffer damage do not demand IB to make them whole, IB will never fix its over-zealous stupid robots. I closed my margin account with IB since. Still use IB for cash trades and data feed. I still wander if IB would ever program some option logic into their bots.
So you'll love a robot buying back a short option @ market and selling a long option @ .01 at huge loss in the middle of a market crash on a spread really worth 5.00 ? What's to love about that? Again, this is more evidence that neither IB nor ther clients like Cdntrader know what a option spread is, never mind a bearish put vertical now ITM (a proiftable trade).
It proves nothing about cdn trader's knowledge. he is 100% right that no human interaction is the ideal situation. with all the liquidations that likely occurred in the last few days no one else has mentioned a parallel situation. what does that tell you? if there were are no other special factors involved the OP for the moment was just unlucky. the situation will be resolved
why is it so difficult for some of you to understand IB has NO LOGIC in their liquidation engine, once you are in the red, it will just randomly select your position and submit a market order to close them doesnt matter if it's hedged options or not. "HOPING" it will net increase your excess, if it doesnt, it will continue to do that until there is no position left, then if your net is still negative, they will notify you to wire the negative amount into the account to get 0 balance. I seriously doubt IB will give a shit or change anything based on a few posts on ET. If the OP takes it to third party, they will probably settle with him since it was just 10k, and not change anything to their system. So just know how the liquidation engine process works, yes it's crap but still have to deal with it, you can set the liquidate last flags as mentioned or i think switch to PM margin vs reg t will also help, although dont have personal experience how the liquidation engine reacts (if any different) when you are in the red.