Is anyone aware if it's possible to trade two products against each other on interactive brokers, either on their platform or via a third party app. I want to trade future A against Future B based on a price ratio, if my spread level is reached it fires off orders to buy one and sell the other. Thanks
yes and they have even tools to do so. enter a contract into the symbol list, then right click it and go for trading tools and then spread trader
Do you know if you can do multiple legs? Buy A, Buy B, Sell C and Sell D all as part of one trade/execution
Just look at the docs, screenshots, videos: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=768 https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=610 https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=34469
TWS BasketTrader. Also, you can just assign instrument specific hotkeys. I have hotkeys for index and rate futures trading. You can choose almost every single detail of the execution using the hotkeys. It's pretty good for short term holds.
I'll have a look thank you, quick q, is this just for calander spreads of the same producta or can it be for say nasdaq futures, v dow futures, v spx futures v Russell futured
Yea for example, you can make a NQ/ES trade in BasketTrader (and save the ratios for quick retrieval) and also have hotkeys to adjust each leg of the ratio on the fly. I don't know how to set up triggers/macros/algos that will execute these types of things automatically (based on the value of a futures ratio) yet. But, that is something I will eventually be looking to do. I use ThinkorSwim to calculate and chart futures ratios just because the charting is so much better than TWS. It's programmable and very easy to do using ThinkScript. TWS DDE for EXCEL API is very good for what you're talking about. I don't trade calendar spreads, only front month ratios and outrights.
But can I trade (buy 2x spx futures) -(sell 1 x dow futures) +(sell 1 x nasdaq futures) in one execution?
for IB's combo trader, you can 100 percent do outright vs outright bc i have used it before. if you are sensitive on slippage and you are doing large size, then maybe not the best choice bc once it shoots out the order,, i think you are stuck amending them indiviuallly.i can't remember that part.also, i would double check about 3+ legs...i think you can... combo trader and basket trader are different...don't use basket trader, that is better if you are doing large index type of stuff if you choose market order type on both legs it can get messy for large orders, then you need TT.