He said so in the first post, you just did not read carefully. He bought an asset, was filled and was hence long the asset. He then placed a sell stop order which he claims was not honored despite the price having moved below his stop price.
There are cases where Stops don't go through. Market order do not go through either sometimes. Markets are not always orderly. One should be aware for the instrument they are using, what are the market conditions, where are the order being held, what the protection limits are set at. These are things that are your responsibility. They are all documented at IB. One just has to look for them. It should be part of your trading plan to know them. Assuming ANY broker will flawlessly always execute is wrong. You need to cover your trading risk. This is part of the risk that you sign up for when you trade. This is not retail purchasing, you have no recourse if one of the documented things that can go wrong, does indeed go wrong. You are the third person in as many months to complain here on ET. I lost about 50K profit on a market order not being filled once during a disorderly market. I made back 130K in the same market, same day. Same instrument. I never contacted IB even though it represented about 80% of my yearly take. Just shake it off, and make some more trades and make it back. Over the long term, you should be able to get it all back and then some.
What a bunch of bollocks. Except perhaps that mistakes happen and one needs to be prepared for with a backup plan. Market orders always get routed and executed without for retail recognizable delay, even if order flow is sold. Same for stop orders to get routed and executed when the stop price triggers, including order flow that is sold. Unless of course you trade with a flawed broker which is neither registered nor regulated with/by any respectable agency. . Goodness, the lack of even elementary knowledge on this site is shocking.
Many aren't aware of this: Protection Functionality for Market and Stop Orders https://www.cmegroup.com/education/protection-functionality-for-market-and-stop-orders.html
That is the ONLY way a market order would be withheld. And that is also clearly spelled out in sec regulations and every reputable broker, including IB, makes that abundantly clear. You seem the only other knowledgeable guy in this thread. I am out of here. It's depressing.
Some people (now on ignore list) have never experienced disorderly markets and claim they know so much and other are ignorant. They read that market orders are always filled immediately, but do not understand what "trading" means. There has to be a counterparty to a trade. What if all the counterparties move outside the protection range? Because for instance some plane crashed into a building? Or a major counter party goes insolvent, and then their counter parties, who depend upon them also go insolvent, etc. ? But I guess that person would say, "it is a market order and you have to take it".
You've likely sent your orders the wrong way. With IB, if you enter on a limit, that has to be the parent order. If you want to exit on a stop, you need to attach this child order to the parent order, referencing the parent's order ID. The child order will then become active only after the parent was filled. That's also the reason why you can't just reverse a position with one order at IB. Need to send one order to exit, another order to enter where you can attach a new stop and a new target. IB will also charge you multiple times the margin if you don't use their bracket functionality.
This is not necessary. You can indeed attach a stop order to an entry order (a parent/child construction). However, you can also do it in two steps: first place an entry order, wait until it gets filled and then issue a stop order. The benefit of this second approach is that you can base the stop price on your actual fill price, which is unknown at the time of issuing a parent/child order. Nonsense. The margin depends on the position size and the instrument. It does not matter what kind of open orders you have as these can be cancelled/removed/modified at any point in time.
In 2008 plenty of orders were not filled. Probably even during SNB CHF euro cap removal. I don't think brokers were ever held responsible. I have been trading for over 10 years but never professionally and I find this thread to be one of the most informative in months. I wish users were kinder and don't piss each other off as the details exchanged are very interesting and useful for some uneducated traders who learn online thanks to you all. A disorderly market can ruin a trader because of genuine ignorance.