Anyone suffered auto-liquidation of positions on IB due to portfolio value bug today?

My paper trading is back up. They called me and reset it.

I've been using IB for many years. Would never switch. The support is generally phenomenal.
 
Diversification. Would always have more than 1 broker.

Not sure how they evaluate what you are trading but lately I have seen lots of bumping the bid down on lower volume assets. This lowers the mark and the value to your position.
 
learner88 said:
According to this reddit thread, some IBKR customers' portfolio were down by 100% temporarily due to a bug. The biggest nightmare is that the system went into auto-liquidation mode if it mistakenly believes that margin was seriously impacted due to the portfolio "crash".

Did anyone experience such a nightmare due to the bug?

I personally did not and have so far had good experience with IB platform. After today, I'm sure many customers will be left disappointed and worried even.

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252Finvesting%252Fcomments%252F834frn%252F
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I HATE that trading assistant notification telling me how much my account XXX is up, how much my account XXX is down. If I am really affected by this bug or are somehow suffering a significant loss, my position would be auto-liquidated in an instant and that "trading assistant notification" is going to help me s***. It does nothing besides filling up my mailbox unnecessarily. How do I turn it off? I looked everywhere in the settings and I couldn't find where to turn this off. I never set this up in the first place. I just all of sudden started receiving these stupid notifications.
 
So far from the replies, no auto-liquidation took place. THe worst case was that new positions could not be taken. This is bad timing since yesterday was a strong bull market day for the U.S stock market.
 
Ayn Rand said:
Diversification. Would always have more than 1 broker.

Not sure how they evaluate what you are trading but lately I have seen lots of bumping the bid down on lower volume assets. This lowers the mark and the value to your position.
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@HobbyTrading you seem to have a decently sophisticated approach. How many brokers do you use? Do you have a backup or do you count downtime as part of the cost of doing business?
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
@HobbyTrading you seem to have a decently sophisticated approach. How many brokers do you use? Do you have a backup or do you count downtime as part of the cost of doing business?
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I'm not sure why you quote the post written by @Ayn Rand and how it relates to me.

Thank you for the compliment. I'm not so sure about my approach being "decently sophisticated" though. As my name states, I'm only doing it as a hobby. I use only one broker for trading: IB. Because this is a hobby, do I not use all the money I have. I only use a portion which would not affect my "real life" in case it would somehow disappear.
Whether downtime of a broker is a business risk or not depends on your trading strategy and the duration of that downtime. If you are a day trader then a downtime of minutes/hours could already impact you. If you are a swing trader then the down time could be for a few days or longer before it can have a severe impact on your positions and account value. And if the down time occurs while your positions are hardly moving does it not impact you much. I think that you would need to make a risk assessment for yourself, taking into account all these parameters and then assess whether you can take this risk or whether you need a back up solution. I don't think that anyone else can make that call for you, unless you have explained your entire trading strategy to that person. My 2 cents.
 
nooby_mcnoob said:
@HobbyTrading multiple global markets wouldn't cause me to think you're really hobby trading :)
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In order to stay close to the topic of this thread: spreading out your positions to various instruments and multiple geographical locations will help to reduce the impact of a downtime at the broker. Others in this thread used the word "diversification" in this context. Of course does position size management, exposure, money management, and risk controls also add to limiting the negative effects of downtime at the broker.

If you want to know more as to why I consider myself a hobby trader I better refer you to my journal: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/trading-as-a-hobby.305910/
 
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