Allright folks: What I want is for customers of IB to post, telling us how they would rate IB's service. Specfically, I am interested in how reliable the connection is to the HSI (HangSeng). Edit: By the way, if I am wrong I will apologize. My own experience was that the service was barely acceptable, with periodic interruptions that occurred often enough that I discontinued trading that market. My experience dates back about 9 months. Assuming this poll is let to run. I will tally the result in 2 days and offer a final comment. I will not be voting. Steve
I'm in Australia, it is very rare to have any connectivity problems to HK server. I can only think of a few brief times in the last 12 months when I couldn't trade HSI due to an IB (not exchange) problem.
Jrkob: I am interested. How did you handle your service interruptions. Did you phone their help desk to close, or did you let your positions run? If so, how did you manage risk during the time you had no control over a position? If you did phone them, how long did it take to close an existing position and what was the cost to you (commission and loss if any)? I appreciate any comment you might have. Steve
I have only 1 trade per day and I close it on market close. I also systematically leave a stop loss order when entering a position. So far the disconnections have been fixed before market close, except on one occasion but this particular day I wasn't trading for some reasons. If I was, I guess I would have called IB HK to close the position.
There are two things of importance to me. First is the quality and stability of the connection. Next is the backup procedure in case I have to close out a position due to service interruption. In my own case, I have experienced interruptions of two kinds, transitory interruptions that are resolved when the connection is re-established before I have to take action, and those that last for a while, and I am motivated to call the desk to close a position. Although it has been a while, I remember calling, waiting for the broker to answer, having to identify myself several times and then waiting while a fill was obtained to close the position. I would guess the average wait from the time I dialed the number to actual close was about 5-7 minutes. Again I am interested in the experience of other traders. Steve
Personally I have another account with another broker (the broker I was using before IB, I kept my account with them but it's dormant). In case I can't close with IB at least I can hedge with my other broker. In 2 years with IB I never had to use this contigency plan though. I know I know, it's not capital effective but at least in case of problem I have this backup.
I am having multiple disconnects that is making trading near impossible. As mentioned in another thread my connection is very poor at present but TWS overall is just too sensitive for the reality of the internet. If it was just me and my connection I would say OK, but I see similar issues reported from US and W Europe (i.e not rural Romania). I suspect it is the usual developer practice of writing code that works fine on the laboratory conditions of their corporate LAN but don't get it that the real world of the internet is not like that. How many IB clients connect via a T1/T3 line, whic is basically what the developers are assuming. There are a number of issues that i do NOT believe my ISP plays a part in. Also reported by others in multiple locations and as yet unfixed. I also have the ability to offset and would not trade without it, although in fairness HK picks up the 'phone in a very acceptable time - I would not trade in US hours without this due to what I have heard regarding que times. On a constructive note, what I suggest IB do for US is have a SEPARATE DEALING LINE so that the support staff can recognise and prioritise incoming dealing related calls. Hanging up on someone who uses the dealing line to ask questions covered on website should be the policy.
In the interest of fairness, I would like to say that my recent experience has been quite good for domestic markets (USA). That is in part why I believe IB has the potential to do a better job overseas. Also for those who trade in the USA and want to trade either the DAX or Stoxx markets, you should know that IF there is an interruption, you will have to call overseas to get positions closed. IB's domestic offices are closed and can't help you. I remember very clearly my experience dialing overseas to get someone in Switzerland to close out a position in the DAX futures, only to be told that they couldn't help me because the problem was "at the exchange". In this circumstance, one would hope to offset the trade, in the Stoxx presuming you could do so quickly. Again thanks for your comments. Steve
I think what you will find is that Australasia and highend Internet Asian countries such as HK, SG and KR and JP report no problems whereas those in e.g Thialand, Indonesia, India , China etc where they restrict bandwidth and those who are either a long way from the server e.g. US or are in areas with a legacy network not upgraded in the '90's (surprisingly large parts of US and EU) are the ones having problems. Conclusion: TWS connection is set up too high end for 1) retail clients and 2) much of Asia.