Has anyone tried this in a real trading account? Here's my current situation. I'm short a shit load of options and when things got ugly the last couple of weeks I hedged via futures since I didn't get a decent option price (wide spread and high volatility). I've liquidated all other positions, so the hedge/options are the last thing remaining in my account. I'm debating whether or not it'll be a good idea to let the options get assigned (most of them are options on SPY, QQQ, IWM ...) and once the market slows down a little use the "Close all Positions" feature within the TWS platform. The thinking is that way I don't have to pay up for volatility which is still high and other than the temporary margin spike (home equity loan here's a use for you) I shouldn't have any negative consequences. However I've never used this feature and I'm a little worried that I'll get a bad fill when firing 20 or 30 orders at once. If anyone has used this, please share your experience
For the ones (190 viewers) who may be interested in this, here is an update It worked like a charm. I've had about 15 positions (futures and stocks) that all got closed within a couple of seconds. Two positions moved away initially and didn't get hit right away but a couple of seconds later I was all flat. One obviously shouldn't get into this position in the first place requiring to use this feature but it's always good to know it's working as expected.
I have also used this feature in IB's TWS, and was happy with the result. One tweak I did, is I separated long and short positions onto separate pages, since I only wanted positions closed in one direction, leaving the others open. Of course, its nice to know one can get flat on all positions from the main portfolio page, in case the house catches on fire (!) etc.