Bracket Trader + IB execution error

Quote from Businessman:

I use the IB API for my own bracket orders.

I fire dozens of bracket orders at TWS via the API each day.

I find that sometimes (about 1 in 50) bracket orders do not always transmit properly.. some parts of the bracket order are shown in TWS with the 'T' status.

I reported this to IB but it didnt get anywhere as they were unable to reproduce it.

I have created a work around in my code that reduces the occurence of this for me (basically slowing down the speed at which i fire the legs of a braket order at TWS using 'sleeps' in my code).
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I've never noticed a problem (using zeroline trader and lots of bracket orders every day on ib live account)

Two things you could do that might improve things by increasing TWS's performance and system priority -

1) Change your TWS load sequence to use the -server java vm which is faster than the -client (see the thread here about running java faster).

2) Download Prio from http://www.prnwatch.com/ . Then put your TWS priority to high and (maybe) your bracket trader priority to above normal.

THESE ARE NON-STANDARD CHANGES SO DON'T BLAME IB IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS ! (use in direct proportion to your own knowledge and skills)
 
IB API is not reliable, do not use it in a real-time trading system. Use FIX connection if you have a working strategy.

BTW, once you have a FIX gateway in your trading system, you can easily switch between dozens of other brokers/prop firms without worrying about integration.
 
Many of the ET survivors (look multiple years not multiple months of membership) have found the IB API to be very reliable for thousands of trades over many years. Then again we probably don't believe that everything has to be coded in C++ to give useful performance.

That's not to say that there are not better, faster or more reliable (not necessarily altogether) out there if you do the size and/or will pay the price.
 
Quote from kiwi_trader:

Many of the ET survivors (look multiple years not multiple days of membership) have found the IB API to be very reliable for thousands of trades over many years.

Note the length of ET membership of the complainers vs the defenders for some verification.
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I agree. IB's API should be reasonably stable otherwise it can't be this big today.

I requested a password for ButtonTrader for the paper trade account. They rejected because they believe IB's papertrader is buggy and not stable.

Perhaps IB paper trading accounts don't work well thru API but productions should be fine.
 
Certainly the IB demo has always been "just a demo" and not suited for anything more. And all of the front end suppliers rightly discouraged using it (as does IB ... it just gives you a feel for tws commands). I don't know about the paper trader account.

If you open a real account you can use Bracket Trader in paper trade mode on it - why not do that until you're ready to trade. Or can you use BT in paper trade mode with your papertrade account as the source of data. Try zeroline trader and others as well.

Paper trading is good for practicing execution and proving your strategy works in real time (but not with the pressure of money). You can do that just as well using BT's papertrade mode with TWS just providing data.
 
This problem is probably caused by IB server reset. My paper trade account is using IB server in U.S., which resets at noon time in Hong Kong.

I got this problem in IB's BookTrader. So I called their customer support.

Thanks all!
 
There might be no problem with Bracket Trader or IB API at all. That's why most you guys had never got such weird observations.

BTW, anyone noticed the missing bar problem in QuoteTracker?

Frequently one or two bars are missed in QT if I launch QT AFTER market open.
 
I have discovered that or me this bug only occurs during highly active times when there are lots of data feed quotes being sent between TWS and the client.

I therefore unsubscribe to all my data feeds before submitting my bracket orders via the API.

This seems to fix the problem for me and i no longer get untransmitted orders hanging in TWS.

Ive been using the API/TWS for over three years and this is definitely a bug with it.
 
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