Roll futures on interactive brokers

Hello everyone,

apologies if this is a naive question, but is there a good way to roll futures contract as they get close to expiration on IB? I'm just manually selling one contract and buying the other at the moment, incurring 2 bid/offer costs and potential slippage if I'm not fast enough.

Related - is there an API way of doing the same?

Thank you,

 

Do a spread.

 

Isn't a spread also buying and selling a contract?

 

Yes. He wants to roll from one maturity to another. Sell to close/buy to open, but as a spread.

 

Thanks a lot Robert, I toyed with TWS and found their spread screen which is exactly what I needed. Does anyone know whether it's tradeable through the API? Is there some sort of spread "contract" that one can buy/sell?

 

Yes, there are exchange traded spreads.

 

Use the spreadtrader from TWS and put your contract in, it will show all the future spreads:

 

Is a spread somehow cheaper than doing it manually?

 

Are you asking if the CME charges a lower clearing fee?

 

I'm just unclear on what the functional difference is between what OP is manually doing (buying one, selling another) and a spread.