Of course you can leave them open to speed up the process but that doesn't change what you are essentially doing when adjusting positions and that doesn't make it any less intuitive a process. TOS gives traders the freedom to do whatever they want, it's just more intuitive. You can use a couple mouse clicks and close legs of Iron Condors, different strike combos of Calendars / Diagonals, or all together combined if you like regardless of what spread the contracts are associated with. You can roll trades to different months, strikes, and lopsided contract amounts, again anything you want all from the monitor page. TWS is far clunkier. Nobody is saying it all can't be done with relative simplicity, but for a software that claims to be the industry leader and so robust I was / am quite surprised how inferior it is for option trading and analysis ( cheap commissions aside of course which I'm loving right now )
You stated you had to build the opposing position to close out a condor. You are still running your mouth while never admitting your ridiculous error. Yes, TWS is more complex. You will never see the light of day with your head shoved so firmly up your asshole.
"Yes, TWS is more complex. You will never see the light of day with your head shoved so firmly up your asshole.' why do you say the obvious. you could repeat the same thing 10x on this board if that was your hobby.
Actually, it has been rather entertaining recently. We have enjoyed the spectacle of an options trader who doesn't know how to work out the maximum value of a spread at expiration (notice I avoid saying calculate as that sounds far too complex), clearly hasn't read any of the standard texts we all read, and won't use Google to inform and educate himself. And now the joy of someone who has all the time in the world to come on here and bitch and moan about IBs platform, but won't take the time to attend the relevant monthly live webinars IB conducts (during which he can ask all the questions he wants) or even access the archives, in order to learn how to use the platform through which he hopes to trade and profit. Cracking fun, don't you think?
This entire thread has gone the wrong way. So let's try to focus and cut out the unnecessary crap. I have used both TWS and TOS. Commissions aside, TOS was built for options traders and TWS was not. TWS is better for equity trading and TOS is better for options trading. I have used platforms better then both, but that is my opinion. If you have to take a seminar to learn to use a platform for option spreads, it's not built well. 1245
Indeed yes, it is better to have money on the line and remain ignorant about the trading platform than it is to learn how to use that poorly built platform, or move to a broker with a better platform.
Hit the bid to sell, lift the offer to buy. Maybe IB can put a disclaimer on the quote page. Or perhaps ppl could own up to their stupidity. 600k clients must see some utility in it, once they learn what the bid represents.
I have accounts at both. I can build a complex order slightly quicker in TWS using their template. TOS has a broader range of positions within their template, but it builds positions only up to four strikes wide, so I still need to manipulate the strikes in TOS. TWS allows you to post PNL on a sheet. It is in many respects a cleaner interface as everything is inside the sheet. TOS has pages for analytics, pages for quotes, etc. Not bad but not as quick as manipulating a spreadsheet, IMO. You still have to drag n drop the legs into the optiontrader order line to buils asymmetric spreads, so TOS definitely has the advantage there, but it is of little importance to me. I want limited analytics built around the OE interface, not the opposite. TOS = bloat to me and all I want is my VaR and portfolio delta and theta.
So for about the fifth time in this thread, you are exactly agreeing with me, yet still running your mouth like the newbie trader you are. Scroll the fuck up and read what I just said. For a simple spread and your incredibly simplistic trading style TWS does just fine. For everything else, it's NOT intuitive and it IS slower. TOS allows any and all closing combinations of spreads, regardless of when and how they were opened to be closed in any asymmetric combination you like with two mouse clicks. That's the way I expected a robust computer system to work. Why TWS can't do that, I don't know. It won't make me stop liking the cheaper commissions, and it won't make me stop using TWS, but it is a little bit ghetto. If all you need is Delta and Theta, great, a fucking calculator built in 1985 should suffice for you. For other people who actually trade, there's a few things in TWS that are clunky and a little comical at times. Of course you don't have any idea what I'm talking about because you don't actually trade past a monitor delta level, but people don't use TWS for it's options platform. They use it for cheap commissions. Their user base only means people like to save money on their trades. Those saved fees really add up in the long run and it's worth putting up with the primitive interface to get them. BTW: Despite the fact that your trading is so ghetto you only require delta and theta, analyser is still far worse then a half dozen other platforms for that purpose as well. Would you also like to entertain me with your high praise of the option analytics of TWS?
There is no way to fix your mistake other than to own up to it. NO, you do not need to build the opposite IC and bid to close the position. You have no credibility. Watch the webinars. And next time simply hit the bid to close the IC.