I'd try 200 share lots and see what happens. It's all about making sure your edge is below the market maker's profit. Hiding within the herd of the other daytraders or orderflow.
Are you suggesting 200 shares total regardless of stock price? Or 200 share blocks combined to equal $100k? I trade stocks from $20-$500, so if 200 was the max I could ever trade for $50 stocks then it won't really be very profitable.
I don't know the specifics of your money management, but instead of testing in sim, try trading a small amount and see if the mm behaves differently. Then try with manual stops.
Okay, thanks. I'll take a look next week and try to report back if you have email alerts when someone replies to this thread.
Using stops is for idiots. Its liken to playing poker with your buddies and showing your cards while you play. Just how can you bluff when you are showing your cards. Why do you need stops if you are sitting at your terminal and know in your mind what level to get out at if it hits? Its up to you to be disciplined enough to get out of the trade when price hits that level. If you are away from the terminal, you shouldnt be trading unless you are a position trader and have stops so far away from the market that it won't hurt you. You place them too tight, the bots are going to probe for them and you will lose time and time again. The market the past two months has been trendless. You are getting whipsawed and leaving stops open for hunting. Yes, you are being stupid.
So I guess Futstrader believes that IB is lying and doesn't hide your stop, and shows it to others? Or somehow uses it against you themselves? Otherwise, nobody should be seeing my "cards" except the server at IB, which is suposed to wait to send it to market only after that price is hit.
I'd agree with this comment. Probably unwise to jump in $100K at a time unless you're asking to get squeezed.
I don't know what it's like in stocks, but I trade 100k positions in forex (which in forex is very small) with IB and numerous times I have been within a half pip (which is as tight as you can get) and not get stoped out.
Forex has exponentially more volume than even SPY. However, I thought jumping in with $100k in the highly liquid stocks I'm trading wouldn't gain attention. It makes up only a small fraction of the volume in the 5-minute candles I look at. Perhaps 5-10% at most. Hopefully some solution will work. After I retest live with only 200 shares, the next things I try will either be entering 3x $30k, or whatever number of orders are necessary at 200-300 shares each to reach ~$100k. Although, now I'm starting to wonder about something else. I trade short-term mean reversion after my algorithm sets off an alarm saying price extended too far in one direction. Maybe it always works in simulation because the original reason price extended was because of a bot squeezing another retailer who entered too large of an order. That would be very sad, as it would basically make my system untenable, since I would just be the next reason price extended too far.
When I started day trading, I used 500-1000 shares+ on just about every trade...of course with tight stops. Guess how that worked out? The last few years I've played 100-500 shares, sometimes more. I'd start with 100 shares, or even less. The less shares, the wider the stop. You are NOT going to be profitable starting out...Like any other JOB, it takes time! Someone here on EliteTrader said 5 years/10,000 hours...to become profitable...The traders staying with it for years are the ones that become profitable. The reason your stops are hit, are they are way too tight, no matter what your back testing says. IB in not the problem...