Quote from OldTrader:
First, let me clarify your misconception. I'm not a long term trend trader. I'm an active short term trader, and have been for close to 40 years. I started in this business as a broker with a major international firm, and since then traded part of the firms proprietary account for a while, traded on the floor, and traded off the floor for my own account for years. For the last 8 years or so I have primarily (not exclusively) used IB.
Now, again, TWS has not failed on me for a long time. I can't speak for WebTrader. I brought it up because I presume it's a more reliable venue since it's IBs primary venue. My guess is they've spent considerably more money in development on TWS than WebTrader. The day you had a problem, I had no problem. And neither did anyone else using TWS.
I posted because I have various contingency plans in place, which you did not seem to have. By the way, if you think IB is the only broker who ever has a problem, think again. They all have them. IB gets alot of publicity here because many of the traders trade through them....happily for the most part.
I also posted to tell you that I have had problems where I was stuck in a position when something went down, that worked for me...since you evidently assumed it always went against you. In fact, I used to joke with a friend that if I ever wanted to make some big money, what I needed to do was put a position on, and then unplug my computer for a day or two. My problem has almost always been getting out too soon, as opposed to getting out just in the nick of time before it went the other way on me.
Finally, I would comment that I don't use the type of leverage that would have created the swing you claim to have had. No one trade, even if I have a problem, is going to ever cause that kind of hit to me. Take it for what it's worth.
OldTrader
First of all I respect your comments on the issue. It appears from what you've said that you have been doing this for quite some time, so perhaps you may know some things a little better than me. Then again, I think we have very different goals as you've been trading for significantly more time that I've been alive - my hope is to achieve financial freedom early enough so I DONT have to trade going into my seventies. I have a good full time job currently as an application developer in the financial sector, so I know up front what I risk when trading because my revenue streams are fairly constant with only surprises to the upside. And if I have made 200% in 2 months, then I like to try and catapult my account further with the profits I've already locked in. I'm sure you won't believe this since you speak as if what I say are only "claims" and not actual truths - this sort of condescending view certainly exposes that you are telling the truth when you speak of your experience...
As far as TWS/Webtrader, I was never told when signing into webtrader that it was an inferior platform with less support and poor reliability - it certainly wasn't any cheaper to be using it than the cludgy, buggy, slow TWS. To suggest such is preposterous without knowing full well what the failure was. Additionally, to suggest "no one else using TWS had problems" is equally ridiculous unless you work at IB (in fact, do you even know for certain what DATE I was referring to). For one, the desk trader I called told me PRECISELY this. For a second, I didnt have to pay for the manual trade execution - something that only happens when IB is unable to provide servicing for regular execution. Again, believe what you like - it doesn't and will never change the truth of the matter.
Finally, you obviously think very highly of your trading and probably because you keep a very low risk profile. However, there are high risk high leverage traders out there who are very successful - I know because many of the clients we have invest BILLIONS into these investment managers. Not everyone is capable or even eager to trade this way but that doesn't make it wrong. Remember when Amaranth went under? Well guess what - despite the lack of media coverage, there was a trader on the other side of that trade who made $5 bln - not bad for a week of work. But I'm sure if you sat down to talk with both traders you could go on about how both were wrong because you have 40 years experience and could never lose that much and that's what counts. And unless you're the Oracle from Omaha, I'm pretty sure both of them would probably laugh in your face. Why? Because you're comparing apples to oranges - your trading style verse theirs (and not to mention on an infinitesimally smaller scale). So you're trading style may expose you less to system failures, it probably also exposes you to less short term profits. The fact of my small contribution to this thread is IB CAN, HAS, AND WILL FAIL - for me AND for others. In this instance, I'm fairly certain that it's due to the fact that they had overloaded their system capacity, but who knows after seeing the ridiculous amount of market making profits they released yesterday. I can only venture a guess as to why it failed and why it took SO LONG to get through to the trading desk (although I think someone with at least moderate intelligence would assume that this was due at least in part to them being overwhelmed by others with the same problem) but in the end it cost me money I had made and that's all that matters. If you're so good that you can make mistakes and make money - well great for you. I see this as a bad sign - I mean, the mistake made you money which can only mean your desired position would have lost money; if a system failure made you money, again, congrats - you must be quite lucky and should stop trading and maybe just buy lottery tickets with your 40 years of compounded low risk profits!
Anyway, I'm done hijacking this thread from the poor individual who lost all this money - whether through his fault or IB's. Instead, my final sign-off will be the response ticket I received for two of my recent issues. Believe whatever you like, just make sure you do it on the right grounds:
2007/10/12
16:26:36 IBCS Interactive Brokers received your correspondences dated October 9 and October 11, respectively, in which you complain of connectivity issues on those dates regarding Web Trader.
IB's top priority is to maintain a reliable trading platform for our customers. IB has resolved those issues responsible for the connectivity issues on the aforementioned dates.
Because all technical issues cannot be foreseen, they are difficult to guard against. As your agreement for the receipt and use of the IB system states, electronic or computer-based facilities and systems such as those used by IB are inherently vulnerable to disruption or failure and may be unavailable to customer from time to time. As such, IB cannot and will not indemnify that its systems will be available and fault free at all times. The customer elects to use the IB systems at his own discretion and assumes these risks associated with electronic trading.
At the time you opened your IB account, you agreed to certain terms and conditions as set forth in the IB Customer Agreement. Specifically, in accepting the Agreement you represented that you had available to you alternative trading arrangements in the event that IB's trading systems were unavailable.
IB strives to provide prompt customer service. We monitor call response times continuously, with most trade related call being answered in 30 seconds or less. Nevertheless, when there is an issue which affects many customers, people tend to contact the trade desk at the same time. As one would expect, IB is not able to respond to all inbound calls within our usual time criteria, resulting in extended hold times for callers.
With regard to these events, IB will not consider compensation for those affected accounts
