You mean chatting with a customer rep from TWS? I got in a couple of weeks ago, it took about 5-10 minutes. On the other hand, the response was very slow and they ended up just telling me to open a webticket.
I'm at a random prop firm where no one trades AMEX, and over our news feed at around 3:02 we were told that all AMEX stocks were halted, and then a few minutes later we were told that the AMEX would be shut down for the day... so I don't think it's fair to blame IB in this case.
100% Agreed. Trading appeared to go uninterrupted on all ECNs--yet all IB customers were blocked from trading ON ANY ECN OR EXCHANGE. This is the problem. I was able to trade AMEX on ECNs at other brokerages, during the IB halt. FYI--This didn't effect RTH orders only, I know that for a fact--there was no real rhyme or reason to the halt/unlhalt protocol. Even SPY was halted at IB---come on, seriously!!! What a mess.
I notice also very little uproar and no explanation of wtf happened here. We get 500 posts on bogus events, and next to nothing on legit ones. Black Swan.
Your answer: Nobody here pushes enough volume at IB to notice. For those that do...we know who we are.
It does seem that the situation was incorrectly handled as trading (and quotes) should've been allowed at other venues for Amex issues. Hopefully someone can clarify what remedial actions will be implemented going forward.