This is a heck of a question to have to post on a forum board but Tech. support cannot answer this question. I have my hot keys programed to simply BUY MARKET. This I assume is a market order, I will get filled at the next available ask price. usually my fill is instantaneous. When I exit , I have been using the mouse , and use the CLOSE POSITION. What type of order does this execute? I thought this would be a market order also. however IB,record tells me I am entering and exiting at the limit price which would explain why I don,t get filled trying to get out of a position, until I cancel the order and reexecute.My emails to IB, Have always come back with send us records, and we will look at It! when you give them a trade record they only reply. this shows that it executed instantly. which It didn't!They can.t answer my question. Am I chasing price to exit my position ? suicide! this doesn't make sense! The Mini Dow has a very narrow spread . market orders should fill instantly! unless you are trying to bargain out of a position. can any one offer any help here? iS This a difficult question? Why can't IB Seem to understand this question? unless tey are too busy?
from the TWS user manual: TWS creates and transmits an opposite side limit order at the market price for each open position. If no market data is available, TWS creates an opposite side market order, and you must transmit it manually
Best way to get out of a position might be to put in a Limit order a couple of points below the Bid. I've setup hotkeys to change the price on an order using the up/down arrows, so I would just click on the Bid, hit down arrow once and click "T" to transmit. Should be an instant fill. -FastTrader
Ditch did the work for you by reading the manual. I bet most people spend more time researching a new refrigerator than they take to read or practice with the TWS (or any other brokers)manual. The TWS offers many powerful features if you know what they do and how to use them. I believe you'll save thousands of $ by reading the manual. I don't understand though how you are trading. Market orders in general are dangerous. I suggest you go to the demo and play around with hot keys. Set up a buy on the offer and another key to transmit. Do the opposite for a sale. With two quick keys you can be in the market in a fraction of a second. When comfortable with that, you can then decide if you want to drop it down to one key. Also learn to use the mouse. Click the offer, click the "T" key and you send a bid to the market at the current offer price. More often than not you'll get filled at that price. If you really want to get filled, click the offer, hi-lite the price field and alter the price to a tick or two above the offer before transmitting. It really is that easy. I see why the help desk didn't understand your question. You are complaining about not getting filled. They look at your audit trail and report back that they see your order immediately sent to the exchange at the price you sent it.
maybe it's changed. Try going to Order/ then Default/ and set the default to MKT if that's what you want. I found this out before tws had all the hotkey functions, so I just set the order default to STOP because it was a pain to enter a stop order. So then one day I am taking it in the shorts, and I hit my close position hotkey and it enters a stop order. And the pain continued.