Here was my first post in its entirety: I wouldn't have called this an "attack". But if it was an attack, it was not a personal attack, but rather a comment on the priorities of TOS. Right after that, you called me a "shill". Was that a personal attack? This was followed up by "old fart", "bitter old men", "why don't you just die already", "put yourself out of your misery", "onset of senility", "inbreeding", "poor education", "completely worthless", "hope I don't have any children to pass on such poor qualities". Your buddy got into the act by calling me a "brainless idiot", amongst other things. I'd call all of the above personal attacks. Yet now you evidently choose to blame me for all of your attacks. LOL!!!!! I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that this is all coming from the guy who by his own admission was "ambiguous" in his earlier post in the thread. Priceless! So here's my rule of thumb here on ET. When an asshole like you decides to start throwing your crap around, I'm going to react in kind. I'm not here to take your shit. So if you decide to continue on in this thread, I'll be here for you. In terms of TOS, I don't know anything about them other than they supposedly have good customer service. I trust they need it given the fact that some of the guys in this thread are customers. OldTrader
Oldtrader's words: "you can get a customer service rep faster than you can get a quote. Sounds like they have their priorities backwards." This is an attack on the firm and clearly an implied personal attack on any who would use them. If you did not mean it that way, it was still taken as such. There appeared to be no reason whatsoever for this post since you admittedly know nothing about them and the post added nothing to the thread, it seemed to be added to cause trouble and nothing more. "Thereâs no accounting for stupidity", "evidently need hand holding", "you moron, Geezuz there are some fools around here", "You do have to be able to read", "Use you fucking glasses fuckwad", "an asshole like you" Every one of your posts, from your first to your last, in this thread have been derogatory, condescending, and the coup de grace give no useful information to anyone. As former floor traders we should know that anything and everything can be said to another trader one day, and it is totally forgotten the next. Neither of us is providing anything substantive to this thread. I would suggest enough is enough.
All you guys are vindicated now with a massive outage today 12/28 with IB. And My TOS account is pushing those quotes through. Too bad my active trades are on IB....
From another thread To OldTrader- What was that shit you were taking last night about IB's customer service being there the handful of times you need them, provided you know how to read and aren't an idiot? I can't remember, refresh my memory please.
Ask and ye shall receive. Anyone notice the difference in TOS futures quotes today? They did a major upgrade this week that now allows the TOS quotes to go from normal fast with some filtering to lightning fast. So this whole debate of whether some fraction of second filtering is a big deal or not is now moot. I had the TOS quote next to the Prophet quote and they were both extremely fast.
It's kinda clear you didn't READ what I said. LOL! First of all, I said that many of the issues that people seem to have problems with and/or call customer service about are covered in the online user's manual and webinars. You have to read to use the online users manual. So let's not confuse that with any of your other statements. IB was down today. Not sure what you want me to say. Did you want me to defend them? Sorry to disappoint you. No one likes it when their broker goes down, least of all me. When the system goes down what exactly do you expect customer service to do? But here's what I'm talking about. IB has let everyone know that things can happen. And therefore, they should take steps to protect themselves for that possibility (or perhaps I should say eventuality). So if you bothered to READ, and take it seriously, you might have done what I've done. I have two different internet connections, one cable, one DSL in case one of them goes down. I have two different computers in case something happens to one of my computers. I have a smartphone that I can access IB's Mobile Trader in the event that none of my internet connection works due to lets say power. And finally, I have a backup broker if I need to offset something. Now, today, I did not happen to have a position on at the time. But if I had one, my first step would have been to call. I would have either gotten through from which I would have determined that the system was out. Or I might have gotten a busy signal. Either way, customer service was not going to be of any help at all. I would have had to use my backup account. By the way, I think that most brokers will have a problem. Only a question of time. And by the way, as I understand it, TOS has had some problems. I say this not to defend IB, but simply to point out some of the realities of online trading. Now, I remember several years back, probably before you were trading, when Globex went down. It was down most of the day, and into the night. That was a more serious problem than this. I did have a position that day, and it cost me something. I took protective steps after that. Here's the bottomline. Customer service would not have done you any good given what happened at IB today. When the system is down, all the friendly howdy do's don't mean squat. You better have your own butt protected in one way or another. Some people didn't today. You can read their posts elsewhere on ET. But ask yourself this: Were they cautioned about the possibility of an event such as this? Is an event such as this possible at any broker? If the answer to these two questions are true, then why is the guy complaining? Because he failed to take any procautionary moves? Now, let me point out one other factor that a guy who read the online information would have known. Stop limit orders on Globex are native to the exchange. So that anyone who had a position, and had placed a stop limit order, had an effective order in play when IB went down. If you placed a stop order, it is not native to Globex, and therefore would be held on IBs servers. Guess what? When IB went down, your order went with it. Again, all you had to do to know this was READ IBs website. And this is what I'm talking about. You don't need customer service to read the information and to know more than most of the customer service guys know to start with. You might need to call them once in a while, but in my mind it's down the list of priorities. Finally, if these problems were frequent I would leave IB. They aren't. I've been with them roughly 7 years, so I know something about that. But further, I've had many brokerage accounts over the last 40 years. There's always something to bitch about. I can remember when the phone went out, and there was no way to call the pit. LOL! So don't think there was something new and different that happened today. OldTrader
My point was merely that you countered what I said about IB being available if I needed them. Today my point was made clear, it was reported that calls were jamming the line, so I would venture to say there was quite a bit of money lost today. I refuse to be one of those people. This was the point that I was trying to make- this was one of those days I could have lost big if I was trading with IB, as many people are painfully aware of now.... The few pennies here and there saved on commissions (which if you read my breakdown of how they take the first $10K of interest bearing cash out of the equation, you'll see they ain't so cheap) are more than lost by even one day of all hell breaking loose like it did today. Customer service, feelings being hurt, hand-holding, ass-patting aside, THIS is the main reason I refuse to do business with IB. Let's wait and see if they take responsibility for this one.....
I know it sounds trite to say I prefer to be treated more like a name than a number... So let me make it a little more realistic. If the shit hits the fan, like it did at IB today, I want to know I can call in and get someone, not end up eye-deep in clusterfuck, as many IB customers did today.
Whether they are available or not, when the servers are down, you aren't going to be making a trade. So, doesn't matter if you were with IB, TOS, Tradestation, etc etc.....the servers are down, that's it. And by the way, many people got through to IB...but it did nothing for them because again, the servers were down. The next point is that if you knew (as you should have) that certain orders are native, then you could have had stops, limits, etc set which were unaffected by IB going down. When I trade ES I simultaneously send a stop limit order. This interest rate thing of yours in my mind is a complete non-issue unless your account is $10K. IB pays far and away the highest interest rates on the street, and charge the lowest interest on margin. Lose that interest on the first $10K, and they are still the highest. This is true for everyone except small accounts....maybe that's you, I don't know. But for some of us what you're saying is false. Finally, IB won't be taking responsibility for this, just as no other firm would or has. Get real. There are ways to protect yourself. I've outlined some of them in my post. By the way, I have no problem if you're trading with IB. But it gets a little weary hearing you beat on IB, when you don't say who you are dealing with. Who is this miracle broker that you are with? OldTrader