Question for IB Traders about Bracket Orders?

i hav'nt made the jump to full time trading yet and have only been trading on my days off from work but, i have a couple hours each morning to trade now. what happens though is i enter a position but hav'nt figured out yet how to set a target price and have the position close at that price when im away from my computer. i've had to sit around and wait or close positions out prematurely.

My goal is to be able to place a market order and place a protective stop and another sell stop to the profit side at a specific target price and have all orders cancel on execution of the stop or target price.

i was looking into using bracket orders to do this and from what iv'e been able to tell it appears thats exactly how they work. so for example i enter a buy order at market, set my stop loss and a price i want to exit at (profit) all using the bracket order.

is this how these work? i tried experimenting with them on IB's simulaor but it was'nt working this morning. also, if this is how they work, is the price entered locked in after placing the order or is the target price adjustable after being placed? ideally i'd like to be capable of manually exiting an order if the chance comes but be able to walk away and go to work with an open position if not, knowing i will stop out or hit a target price and exit that way.

thanks

 

Have you read the manual? Its easy to set bracker orders and they work fine. They work as you describe. I would suggest getting Buttontrader tho to do it for you automatically. Been using it quite awhile and it works great.

 

Bracket orders work perfectly on IB and that's a great way to trade if you're scapling/short swinging.

Suggestion: Use IB's booktrader.

You can configure it to set a target or multiple targets(3) and to set your stop loss. You order will also be displayed on the book trader ladder as long as you configure it to show the status bar.

TO configure booktrader offset defaults as well as target(s) and stop, you'll need to access hotkeys in booktrader's configure menu.

Some terminology concerning bracket orders:
1. Parent is the entry order.
2. Child is the offset(bracket) based on the parent order. This is your target exit(profit) and stop(loss) orders.

Experiment using the sim account. IB's booktrader is very versatile. It's good enough that you might not need to purchase 3rd party DOM(depth of market) trading interfaces like button trader, etc.

 

very cool...much thanks for all that info. looks like i'll have to get that simulator fired up and running.

 

IB's Booktrader is very good - you just need to spend a few days or weeks configuring it to meet your requirements. I don't know why anyone would bother with Button Trader when everything can be done in Booktrader.

 

In my opinion, bracket trades in IB work great. It's easiest to do in Book Trader, but they can also be placed on the main trading page. Also, you can change the target and stop loss prices once you are in trade. watch the archived webinars on the InteractiveBrokers web site on Book Trader and Order Types.

 

thanks for clarifying that riskette i was still wondering about being able to adjust my parameters. will have to look into those webinars, booktrader looks very interesting.

 

I agree and feel that BookTrader is better than a lot of people give it credit for.

However, I do have one question that you may be able to answer concerning multiple targets. I see that there are options for multiple targets (up to 3) but the extra buttons seem to be grayed out. I have changed the settings to multiple-order mode but this does not seem to change the availability of multiple targets.

Is there something simple I am not thinking of or is this feature not enabled yet? Just curious since I am running the latest version of TWS.

 

There is also a product called "Bracket Trader" (Google that) that may be of interest. I have not used it, so can't speak from experience.

-Pete

 

One thing to be aware of with IB bracket orders:
Say you go long. In order for the profit side of your bracket order to execute, the bid has to reach the price you specified. They sell into the bid in this case. This can be a problem in thin markets where there may be a large bid/ask spread -- you might see prints at the ask, but until the bid reaches your exit price you won't exit!