Def Concerning level 2 (assuming this idea materializes)--The problem I have sometimes is when I look at a level 2 box, and see an opportunity...then I have to type in the symbol in TWS. A lot of times, by the time I type the symbol in TWS, the opportunity is gone. Or the stock has moved enough away from the price I initially intended to trade at, it's no longer worth the risk. It sounds like entry from the level 2 box is out of the question, but how about this alternative? After you type in a stock in a level 2 box, you click on something in that box and the associated stock automatically shows up on an order entry line, defaulted to best ECN or whatever the user sets up. Even the opposite would work--enter the symbol on an order entry line, click on something there and a level 2 box appears. Is anything like this in the cards? BTW, the help you've provided on this forum is greatly appreciated.
mjt, give me a few days to get back to you. I know of some things in the works but am not exactly certain on the level of offerings.
I can guarantee (well sort of <g>) that if IB adds a few more functionalities to their software (trailing stops is up there) they will cream the other direct access guys. I mean who the hell can compete with them on commissions!!?
On another thread, I have already listed a large number of requests related to order entry and position management. After using IB for another month, here my current thoughts. Order entry is very important for people that play news plays, or watch for technical setups in large numbers of stocks. I really like the overall IB TWS user model with the ability to stage multiple orders for the same contract. But the flexibility of the system can be very cumbersome, esp. for people who always US stocks and always uses ISLAND (or BEST_ECN). IB should pay attention to streamlining the portions of the product which are time-critical and/or repeated very often. TIMESAVERS: 1) Need to be able to enter a symbol quickly. I would like to be able to just type "SUNW" in the contract column and have it default to BEST_ECN. The popup windows are very annoying. It would be better if the SYMBOL ("SUNW S USD") be separate from the ROUTE ("BEST_ECN"). If the route was on a separate column, it could be a choice list so you could change the route easily. 2) It is very cumbersome to insert and delete rows!! Having to right-click and select 'Insert Row' or 'Delete Row' is a pain. I should be able to just hit INSERT or DEL key. IB should support keyboard repeat, so that you can quickly insert/delete rows by holding down the key. You should be able to create a keyboard macro for InsertRow / DeleteRow 3) The 'row focus' disappears when you delete the row. So in order to delete many rows, I have to click the row, right-click to get popupmenu, select 'Delete Row'. This is very tiresome if you need to delete many rows. Also, when cancelling an order, the 'row focus' disappears. Often, I have 10 orders on a contract that I want to delete. So I select the first order, and I hit cancel (mapped to 'z'), and the row disappears, and so does the 'row focus'. So, in order to delete 10 rows, I have to click, z, click, z, click, z, etc.. Very annoying... 4) Another roadblock to deleting contracts is that if there are any orders for the contract, you can't delete it. You get an error "This ticker cannot be deleted because it has an order." IB should be smarter than this. If I am trying to delete a contract, obviously I don't care whether I have orders on it or not! IB should cancel any open orders, delete all the orders lines, and then delete the contract. 5) My personal pet peeve is how the filled order rows are removed automatically after some delay (10 sec?). This creates *havoc* if you are trying to change/transmit orders when this happens, because the row focus shifts when the filled order row is deleted. If I am adjusting the price / size on an order, and the focus shifts to a contract row, I get an annoying popup "Please select the order for which you would like to adjust the price." which I have to close. Possible fixes is to 1) correctly maintain the focus 2) give an option to not automatically delete filled orders. Plus, don't display error popups. Just beep or display an error message in a status bar. Forcing users to close a popup is very annoying. 5) The "Show Market Depth" window is nice, but it should allow you to change the symbol in the window and/or automatically change the symbol when you select a contract on a Page. It is too much work to keep popping up a new window for each symbol you are interested in. I don't have enough screen realestate to keep 10 of these things open. Also, I noticed you only have this menu open on a contract with ISLAND ROUTE, but I think this should be available regardless of route. For example, even if I'm using BEST_ECN I might want to see the ISLAND book. Obviously, the BEST_ECN market depth would be better. SPACESAVERS: Now that all stocks trade in decimals, the IB tabular format looks much better. But there is still lots of room for improvement. 1) Allow customization of the contract names. I don't want to see "S USD" as I only trade US stocks. I would rather have an abbreviation for ISLAND like ISLD and ECN for BEST_ECN.. So instead of "SUNW S USD BEST_ECN" I would like to see "SUNW ECN". I would prefer a fixed-width font and fixed column widths for the stock symbol and route because it makes it much easier to scan in a table. 2) Allow customization of the table columns. a) I don't want to see bid size and ask size because I am already looking at L2. b) I don't want to see the account name repeated on each order line, because it is always the same for me. 3) JTWS should remember the column widths I have set. Currently, each time I run JTWS, I have to adjust thek column widths to shrink the size of JTWS. I shrink the Contract column so I only see the stock name (because the S USD BEST_ECN is the same for all of them), and I minimize the 'Bid Size'/'Account' column because I don't need it. POSITION MANAGEMENT: Position management is horrible in IB compared to CyberCorp CyberX2 and some other direct-access brokers. 1) On the Account Information page, my experience is that the left-hand side (stock market value, cash balance), etc. updates much quicker than the right-hand side (the position list). They two sides get out of sync very often, with the position list not getting updated until 30-60 seconds later. 2) I would like TWS to be able to create a new Page containing contracts for all my open positions and orders preset with the position sizes to close out the position. This would have saved me $$$ on several occasions already. 3) The position information should be displayed as a column on your contract Pages. (This is related to allow customization of columns mentioned above). It is a big distraction for me to have to open the Account Information window to check on my open positions. It would be much more efficient to have a column "Pos" on the contract pages that displayed the size of my positions in each contract, or blank if I don't have a position in that contract. 4) In addition to displaying my open position size on a contract, I would also like to see my net gain/loss based on my cost basis and BEST_ECN bid/ask prices. 5) I would like to see an overall net gain/loss on my open positions using BEST_ECN bid/ask prices. 6) If positions are displayed on the contract pages, then I would like a menu option / keyboard macro to close/liquidate a position using a predefined route, e.g. BEST_ECN. This would automatically create an order with the correct position size and default route and transmit it. CONTRACT COLUMNS To summarize the changes I have suggested for the contract columns, here is what we have today: Bid Size, Bid Price, Ask Price, Ask Size, Last Price, Change, Last Size I would like to see Bid Price, Ask Price, Last Price, Change,PosSize,NetGain Another column would be the CostBasis for the open positions I have on the contract. Ideally, in order to satisfy everyone's needs, we should be able to pick the columns we want, and place them in any order!
fleance, That is quite an exhausting but very useful list. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I think some of the suggestions may already in the works. Hopefully this will help with the priorities. I'll pass it along.