And another thing, where is this long line I need to wait in for a stop or mkt order? If I have a sell stop or sell mkt order and the bid is 830.25, what line do I have to wait in to sell at 830.25? If 830.25 is my sell stop, then my sell becomes mkt at 830.25 and what is going to prevent me from getting filled at 830.25? There are already plenty of traders trying to sell at 830.50, and some of them are successful, I am merely trying to sell at the bid. Who do I have to wait behind? Show me this long line of sellers at the bid. I have never seen them. I don't think they exist except in the mind of some fearful disoriented trader wannabe.
Suppose there are 9 contracts bid at 830.25. Suppose there are 9 individual sell stop orders sent by other people resting on globex at 830.25 ...all of which are timestamped as arriving before your order does. All these orders have to be fillied before you can be. Agreed that if there are 10 contracts bid at 830.25 then you will also get 830.25. But when then there are 9 bids or less ...you will get the next lowest bid at 830.00. You just suffered a tick slippage because your order took lowest priority in filling. Of course there is a queue at every price level. That is how Globex knows which orders to fill when. Maybe most of the time you will also get the same price. But when prices spike quickly and there are fewer/bids offers at a given level, then you risk suffering a tick slippage for no other reason that you are using a service who handles stops in a crappy second rate manner. Sorry if you don't understand how globex fills orders.
simtrader, you are completely off base. STOP LIMITS ARE NATIVE. Globex does not support stop market and they rest on IB's servers. It is the client choice. If one is after stop market, it is not difficult to set up a hot key with a predefined WIDE stop limit and have 1 or 2 button hot keys set up to xmit an order. Thus if you insist on using a STOP Market, you can easily set up your default to say be 10-15 points away. Changing the initial trigger is as easy as sliding the price and hitting xmit. The stops that were not triggered on friday were indeed on the IB servers and from what I've heard were related to a technical issue which should be resolved as of todays trading. For full technical details on how to set this up with 1 click functionality, someone in my office prepared the following: If you set-up your TWS correctly then it would be probably impossible to set-up a stop-limit order quicker than IBâ You can set up a stop limit hot key. You can specify the limit price as a function of the bid, offer or last price. You can specify the stop price as a function of the bid, offer or last price. You can also set-up the hotkey to instantly transmit. Thus, with one key you would set-up the stop-limit and transmit the order. This would be held on the Globex server. You could set-up multiple hotkeys to cover stop-limits with different limit and stop price parameters. If you wish to modify the stop-limit order you have two choices: The 2 key press 1. to cancel the stop-limit; 2. to send the new stop-limit. Or you can simply change the limit price: 1. click on price and adjust 2. hit hotkey for transmit Further, you can set-up the hotkey so that the stop-limit order gets sent with your original order as an if-done order. i.e. you could set up one key to: 1. buy at bid, 2. if filled send a sell stop-limit order with a stop price as a function of the bid, offer or last price , e.g. last-2 and limit order as a function of the bid, offer or last price, e.g. last+10 3. transmit all order. You could further increase the functionality of the order to make the stop-limit OCAâed with a sell limit order. This sell limit order could be set-up as a function of the bid, offer or last price. It could be set-up as the profit taking leg of the order. If either the stop-limit order or the limit order are executed then the other order would be cancelled.
Simtrader, Let me try to respond to some of your posting. I have been using IB and Bracket Trader (a VB program that allows one click order entry with a STPLMT and a LMT order that are sent immediately after initial order is filled, we are talking 2 - 3 seconds after fill confirmation) for 8 months now trading the ES. There is a button in BT that modify's the original STPLMT order, either up or down within 1 - 2 seconds (I have mine setup so there is a 5 point spread between the trigger price and the limit price) on rare occasions I get 1 tick of slippage. I don't quite understand what you mean regarding stops held on IB's servers, assuming Globex only accepts LMT and STPLMT orders (I sent a email to Globex for clarification on the orders they accept) then where should STP's be held, isn't the only place left at your broker's servers? I think the issue you are having is that you feel IB should automatically turn all STP's received from customer's into STPLMT's. To me, if you want a STPLMT then you should place your order that way. IB does not pretend to be a hand holding broker, in my opinion it is not IB's but the customer's responsibility to make sure they understand what the potential implications are of the orders they send. This is from IB's website, "Native exchange held stop limit orders are now available for Globex. Simulated stop limit orders will no longer be available." I appreciate your point of view, thank you for sharing your thoughts. regards, Bruce Hawkins p.s. I got caught in the early morning stop issue, I was long 1 c and noticed the status light of my STPLMT was light blue (normally green) tried to close my position, nothing happened tried to cancel my STPLMT and LMT (target + 4 from entry) cancel still pending, about 20 minutes later I get a fill confirmation that my LMT triggered and made $200.00 - comm. not the way I want to make money.
IB should modify their status MAGENTA thing. When you try to cancel an order that isn´t any more in the exchange´s order book then I would prefer to see a popup window "NO ORDER IN BOOK" instead of status MAGENTA. Because there is no such thing as ´Cancel Pending´. The order was already executed - plain and simple. The same thing with BUY/SELL LMT DAY orders that expire at 3:15 pm CT, but you still see them displayed as active after 3:45 pm CT. Of course you get status MAGENTA when you try to cancel such an order. Why not say "NO ORDER IN BOOK" or "ORDER EXPIRED" ???
9 bid at 830.25, 8 offered at 830.50, 8 buys take out 830.50, offer goes to 830.75, best bid is 830.50, my mkt sell is filled at best bid. All in the flash of an eye! Too bad, cause if was any slower, I might change my mind and hang on to my long position cause it looks like it wants to go back up. SPEED KILLS!
Def, I appreciate the informative reply and suggested workaround for getting (simulated) stops held on Globex. I realise that "technically" stops are not accepted by Globex but other brokers just automatically enter a stop +/5-10pts limit for you, without you knowing about it. The effect to the end user is invisible. It's as if Globex holds your stop native. But hey, if you can set this preference manually in IB then good. If you seemingly can use IB to create simulated stops (stops with wide limit) held native ...then it really begs the question why on earth maintain the option to keep stops on IB servers? There is no godly reason why any trader would want to do this IF THEY KNEW THE DIFFERENCE. I realise that IB is not in the business of hand-holding but if they are not going to scrap their stop orders, they should at least clearly explain to folk why they are generally seen as inferior to creating a stop w/wide limit orders held on Globex. It's in IBs own interests to NOT have people keep stop orders on their servers. Some people from Friday are closing their accounts. Eevn if that glitch is fixed, another can come along in the future. There's just no sense in keeping your stop on IB servers and nobody in this thread has honestly disagreed with that point. Hell, if there's a better alternative within IB then why would you ever use a stop held locally? I like your workaround solution so let's publicise it and shout loud and clear NEVER USE STOPS HELD ON IB SERVERS. If I were def I'd be going to my bosses saying "Guys I'm fed up of hearing about problems with our stop orders. Let's just have our programmers write some code that adds 20 points onto a stop order and have it sent to rest on globex as a stop with 20 points limit order and let's educate our customers that this is what their stop order really gets entered as. In short let's get the bloody orders off ours servers because the grief isn't worth it anymore!" It'd be in IBs own interests to do this because people wouldn't be closing their account like some of the Friday traders now are. It would not be hand-holding. It would just be a smart business decision to get rid of a problem that has plagued IB on-and-off for years.
Very well put! There is no qeue when you hit a bid or for that matter hit a price well below of above the last traded price. This guy better get it straight before he blows a gasket! Riskless
simtrader, Do you know that Globex can randomly decide to cancel stops if outside a certain range? Take the example you have a GTC and do not want the risk of it being canceled. In this case, one may want the flexibility of a local stop. The other example is that a stop +5 or stop +10 does not guarantee a fill on a market order. IB makes it very clear (as pointed out on an earlier post) that stops are local and stop limits are native). It has nothing to do with holding hands and doesn't take much work to set up with the flexibility one desires. There might be other examples but I do not know. In the end, the functionality is there to do what you claim couldn't be done. It is for the user to decide.