Trading Technologies cancelled my order—what would @Rick_TT Rick Lane say? On the late afternoon of Friday, May 5, 2017, during market hours, I entered a GTC order to sell 30 June ES at 2403.25 and a GTC order to buy 30 June ES at 2394.25, a nine-point play. I anticipated a Sunday night opening pop up due to the French election results then a quick reversal and I wanted my orders to be near the front of the queue. The TT platform indicated that both orders were active and working on the exchange as usual when submitted on Friday. And both orders were still active one second prior to the Sunday, May 7, 2017, evening open at 6 p.m. ET. However, at precisely 6 p.m ET the sell order was erroneously cancelled by the Trading Technologies platform as the market opened through my price. My order was not filled. I immediately contacted Trading Technologies in Incident INC0167432 and they immediately responded then acknowledged the platform error. I then asked that I be filled at my price. However, there was no reply as I watched the market continue to move lower which necessitated the cancellation of my offsetting buy order. Soon thereafter the market traded through my offsetting buy order price. I asked Trading Technologies to reimburse me for the loss that I suffered for those nine ES points. Here is their response: --- Your ticket submitted last night to our Support desk, as well as your request below was forwarded on to me in our Customer Success department. I've spoken with Support and Engineering to gain some clarity on the issue. While your OCO SSE order specified GTC orders to be submitted, the GTC order does not reside at the exchange server until the SSE algo is running. Due to an error Sunday night, your algo failed to start up properly and thus, the order was not submitted to the exchange. This does not mean that the order was pulled but rather that the algo driving it was cancelled at the open . Our Engineering team is in the process of applying a permanent fix for this so that this issue does not reoccur, and we expect that resolution in short order. We sincerely regret the difficulty caused by this matter. And while I realize this is merely an explanation and not a resolution, we certainly do not have the authority to take orders or place orders on our customers' behalf, and it is not our practice to reimburse customers in such situations. This matter has been referred to our Management team for review, and we will update you on the progress of our engineering work to fortify our processes. Should you wish to discuss this further, I am available to you (my contact info below). --- I need to disagree with some of that reply: 1. "While your OCO SSE order specified GTC orders to be submitted, the GTC order does not reside at the exchange server until the SSE algo is running." I disagree. This was a GTC limit order that was or should have been resting at the exchange since Friday afternoon. And all indications on the TT platform demonstrated that it was. Just because there was also an OCO stop order does not change the fact that the limit order was or should have been at the exchange since Friday. It should never have been pulled from the exchange as it would lose its priority in the queue. Here TT is apparently saying that the GTC sell order that was submitted on Friday during market hours was never submitted to the exchange. My understanding, according to all indications on the TT platform is that it was, indeed, submitted to the exchange on Friday. How could it not have been? And if it was not then that was an additional error. Or, more than likely, the CS representative is just wrong and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of a GTC limit order sent to the exchange. And if all that weren't enough, the TT Audit Trail documents the exchange order ID number. 2. "This does not mean that the order was pulled but rather that the algo driving it was cancelled at the open." Again I disagree. This was a limit order that was or should have been resting at the exchange since Friday. This order was cancelled by TT. 3. Another disagreement I have is that TT would not fill my order at my price when I requested it shortly after the open when the market was trading only a short distance away from my price. They now say: "… we certainly do not have the authority to take orders or place orders on our customers' behalf." I have to call them out on this: if they have the "authority" to cancel my order they certainly have the authority to put it back. 4. "… it is not our practice to reimburse customers in such situations." In certain situations, it should be. Even much-maligned Interactive Brokers routinely reimburses clients for losses incurred as a result of issues with their notoriously buggy TWS platform. A quick search reveals this one: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/52k-gone-from-my-ib-account-what-next-sue-ib.107347/page-16 where in post #157 IB states, "IB will indeed compensate the client for loss." And this was in spite of the fact that the client may have contributed to the errant order placement issue by double clicking; and there was also the additional issue of that client's delayed reporting (playing the market). But the point was that there was a bug in the TWS platform and the client was fully compensated. Interactive Brokers did the right thing. And in another thread here: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/ib-made-an-error-will-they-fix-it.73400/page-7 another Interactive Brokers client receives compensation for another IB software problem. That client concluded in post #71, "Besides, this thread is a success for IB. It was a straight up case where fault was evident. They did the right thing." And there are many additional compensation examples from IB and others. Trading Technologies touts their platform as having "superior performance" and being "trusted by professional traders worldwide." And they say, "Today, we set the standard for professional trading platforms." I say, if you are going to hold yourself out there like that you need to maintain some level of real-time credibility. The CS reply is inaccurate and insufficient. My limit order was placed and resting at the exchange since Friday and that order was cancelled by TT a fraction of a second prior to it being filled. I'd like this matter escalated to Rick Lane, CEO, and to be fairly compensated and made whole because it's the right thing to do. TT says, "We make the tools that the world’s premier traders trust to maintain their edge. Because they need speed, reliability and customization. And we deliver." I pay a premium for this standard-setting platform and I await my delivery.
TT is a technology provider not a broker like IB. They are right that they have no authority to intentionally place an order on your behalf. There is also no facility to hand you contracts at a specific price. Who would be your counterparty? Even if they wanted to be your counterparty how would they do it? As a block trade? Are you set up for and permitted to do block trades and is a 30 lot big enough? Exchange access providers don't indemnify you against their software errors. They wouldn't want to break that precedent. When mistakes are made it pays to play nice and ask for things that they can legitimately provide. Maybe 1-2 months of free software. Their response so far sounds very reasonable. Keep the tone polite and maybe you'll get something. If you are too threatening they might just cancel you. You have no cards. This is absolutely 100% NOT an actionable offense. The law would be completely on their side. Keep that in mind when negotiating.
The first rule of banking, never take a loss, that also applies to fintech. It is irrelevant whether you are correct or not, the loss will be yours. You can fight, but ultimately you have only lost profit, ie. time, so return to neutral, there are many times you lose capital as well. Should TT have done something acknowledging their mistake, yes, but that breaks the first rule. As suggested try and obtain some free license months, otherwise change provider. Once it starts it rarely stops decaying, would suggest you have a parallel system you can move to in case this happens again. The problem is the markets are moving to a perfect scenario, a lot of waiting and rapid moves, if you miss them it becomes painful. You do have cards, that's nonsense, you prep to walk away. The "mistakes", although they never are, by providers and brokers will increase going forward, and ultimately it will always be your capital on the line, not theirs. I've had trades deleted by broker algos that lost both time and capital, so from my perspective you came off lightly, it just never seems that way when it happens to you.
To some of those who have commented so far: Yes, I know TT is not legally obligated to make this right. Thank you very much.
In my experience getting compensation from TT or any fintech company is not easy. You seem to have the incident well documented so maybe they will comp you some platform months for free.
Hi @J.P. First, I'm sorry to hear a malfunction in the platform caused your order to be pulled. As our support and CS team explained, TT is not allowed to trade on any user's behalf, and as others have noted in this thread, it is not common policy to reimburse for such issues. While we at TT do indeed pride ourselves on our reliability, in the 24 years we've been building technology, the reality is we've had software malfunctions from time to time. Some big, some small, but to us they are all unacceptable. I'm not so sure it's reimbursement you're looking for -- after all, in the past you've reached out to me directly to help you resolve issues and this time you chose a public forum. So I'm responding in kind. I'd be happy to take this offline, so to speak. I'm sorry our pursuit of giving you a superior platform came up short in this instance, but rest assured the issue was quickly patched (hotfix going out after Friday's close), and you have a team that cares deeply about your experience and about continuing to provide you the stable and reliable trading platform you require. -Rick
13.5k malfunction.. overnight trading 30 lots implies conservative margin of 300k .. or ~5% hit on profit. Most vol plays only come around infrequently .. especially in this low vol environment. Its only human to be upset over it. It's easier cutting a check and keeping a loyal customer whose swinging 100 lots intraday for the next 10 or more years. Regards, Chris
Most of these "issues" arise from a lack of understanding of the agreement signed with the broker and of risk itself. You are accepting all risk that goes with this game. If you don't like it, don't play. surf