I have been using stop orders for covering short option positions using the 'best' category, which appears to be creating a synthetic stop until execution. This has been working reasonably well for both long and short positions on the qqq's, with most orders ending up going through island. However, last week I had a situation where the order for a long did not get transmitted to an exchange for several minutes while the price continued to move solidly beyond the stop price. Once transmitted, the order was filled rapidly, but I could not understand why the order just seemed to hang for several minutes before being sent to an exchange. I was reluctant to try and cancel out the stop and do the order by hand, thinking that I might easily end up making things worse. I was wondering why this happens and how to avoid it in the future.
paulb BEST has some serious problems-yours is another good example of why its a ticking time bomb. See the "How Good is Best" thread for other discussions of this trading protocol.
My trading partner and I have had similar complaints. We both have had numerous problems with IBâs stop orders. Many times, price would trade right through without the order being activated. In one instance, long ago, an order was suddenly triggered when the market was trading almost .75 above the election. According to an IB rep, 2 trades must occur at you election price to activate the order. I had checked time and sales in some of these instances and, in fact, 2 or more trades had occured at my election price and still no activation. After many similar situations, I began to notice that orders were almost always triggered if the market was about to reverse and head in my favor and rarely activated when price would continue against me. I just stopped using them and now rely on executing stops manually. This is obviously easier for someone like myself who spends all day monitoring 1-5 min positions.
Election of Nasdaq stops is not based on trades but on bids and offers, respectively. There has been ample discussion here recently about the unreliability of IB's Nasdaq stops (Nyse stops are working fine) and IB has inofficially acknowledged those problems (check the thread archives). What I don't understand is why IB does not take the functionality offline until those problems are fixed or at least officially warns their customers about these problems. Instead IB seems to prefer putting their unsuspecting customers at risk in order to keep a lid on this issue. I've recently emailed the helpdesk asking them to make ARCA stop orders available until they had fixed the problems with their nasdaq stop order hanlding. I got back the following answer which clearly shows that they simply don't care: "unfortunately, we are not able to adjust our stop orders"
dlinke, you are totally off base stating that IB doesn't care. You got a response from someone on the help desk who probably meant to say that they can't change the way stops work on short notice. The same person is probably answering hundreds of requests on different topics throughout a given day and should have provided more info. While this is no excuse, try to understand that levels of experience on the help desk vary greatly and efforts are underway to improve responses. One thing that I can tell you is that the issue with NASDAQ stops is being looked into at the highest levels.
def, I'm glad to hear that efforts are underway with respect to improving the quality of customer service. Unfortunately, with some of the answers I get from the helpdesk I often have to wonder if they even understood the question. It's also good to hear that the issues with Nasdaq stops are seriously being looked into. However, from the way my inquiry was answered this was anything but obvious.
dlincke- Help desks tend to be notoriously bad, just about everywhere. IB is no exception. I once sent an email to support at IB asking how I can determine whether I can short a stock(This was before I figured out they had a list). Support told me the only way you can determine this is to transmit the order and see if it is accepted or rejected. Can you imagine?? This is poor training about IB products, nothing less. I am sure this question has been asked enough times that IB would get the message to place a clickable list on the home page rather than hiding it under products and commissions.
Thought you folks would like to see an email exchange I had with IB Customer Services this week based on this forum's input. Dear Trader, Thanks for your email. There is currently no problems with any of our stop type orders. Please feel free to apply at your convenience. Sincerely, Aimee IB Customer Service cmonroe@execpc.com on 06/12/2001 10:32:34 AM To: Help/Interactivebrokers@Interactivebrokers cc: Subject: Customer Trading Subject: Customer Trading Topic: OTC Stocks User Name: Full Name: Craig Monroe Account Num: prospective customer E-mail: cmonroe@execpc.com Message: Ive been reading about your customers satisfaction with your services and am considering shifting my trading account to your company. The stumbling block here is the consistent report that your system for Nasdaq stops doesnt work. This is an extremely important area for me - Please let management know that this problem is hindering obtaining new customers. When you fix this, please let me know. Thanks.Craig Monroe
That is flat out crap, from my perspective, of course. That is the standard one-dimensional response I have received many times from IB. At one point, in a recent conversation with an IB rep, I referenced the dissatisfaction I had seen on this forum. She claimed there was absolutely no way that the stops worked incorrectly and then went as far as to insinuate that I must be lying about the comments and that no representative of IB would be possibly be on this forum.
I'll make sure this is passed on to their supervisor. From what you guys say, NYSE stops are fine and NASDAQ stops sometimes do not get triggered where you expect them. I haven't heard complaints on Futures. I've looked at some of the audit trails a month or so ago on complaints and some are definately input type errors. Others looked like they should have been triggered.