Horrible experience:IB cost me $50,000 this morning

Quote from 4DTrader:

why do people use IB if they trade lots of more than 1000 shares???

Can they do the math?

IB is for small lot trading (that's why IB gives you per share price), once you reach lots of 2000 shares, many brokers are better choices, much better!

Example: you buy 10,000 shares of CFC, how much commission do you pay IB?

you buy the same number of shares, how much commission do you pay Scottrade?

If you have a lot money, you should never use IB in the very first place.
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That makes zero sense. ZERO. Love to see you block trade with Scottrade.

You might want to look into prime brokerage or retail outfits that offer quasi-prime brokerage services.

Wait a minute. You're only kidding around.

My bad. I tell ya, sarcasm is harder to spot on the internet.
 
Quote from DerekD:

That makes zero sense. ZERO. Love to see you block trade with Scottrade.

You might want to look into prime brokerage or retail outfits that offer quasi-prime brokerage services.

Wait a minute. You're only kidding around.

My bad. I tell ya, sarcasm is harder to spot on the internet.
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I think he was serious...
 
Quote from zhexin2:

I am a program trader. I shorted around 300 stocks of totally 4.5 million dollars. when I decided to close those positions, IB refused to take my order. All the liquidating orders were in the status "acknowledged but not transmitted". Until One hour later, my order started to take effective. This is very horrible today since the nasdaq kept going up. The stupidity of IB cost me 50K. later on, I received a message from IB "over excessive order submission, and my account is flagged". On Tuesday this week, I had the same problem but that time I did not receive IB message about the excessive submission warning.

this problem occurred a number of times when there were too many positions in my account. I wonder any one came across the same problem.
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I think Derek hit the nail on the head.... there's a limit of 50 messages per second.

http://individuals.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=programInterface&ib_entity=llc

But what gets me is what did you do for the next hour while you waited?

My suggestion: READ all the documentation thoroughly. Then read it again. It sounds like what cost you $50K was your own lack of effort in learning the nuances of this software.

OldTrader
 
Quote from newguy05:

why the hell on earth do you use IB if trading in the millions? are you just insane.

What do you trade? just normal stocks? find a more professional platform..

IB is for people who trades in the 5 and low 6 figures because IB has such a wide varity of different products all under 1 roof, like the jack of all trades, but it's not really a good platform and terrible customer service.
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Yea, In the past big smart traders would use safe companies like Refco or Bear Stearns
 
Quote from OldTrader:

I think Derek hit the nail on the head.... there's a limit of 50 messages per second.

http://individuals.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=programInterface&ib_entity=llc

But what gets me is what did you do for the next hour while you waited?

My suggestion: READ all the documentation thoroughly. Then read it again. It sounds like what cost you $50K was your own lack of effort in learning the nuances of this software.

OldTrader
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what does it mean "50 messages limit per second" in IB API document? does it include IB feedback about order status, such as order filled or cancelled? or the messages due to the call of reqAccountUpdates()?
 
Quote from zhexin2:

I am a program trader. I shorted around 300 stocks of totally 4.5 million dollars. when I decided to close those positions, IB refused to take my order. All the liquidating orders were in the status "acknowledged but not transmitted". Until One hour later, my order started to take effective. This is very horrible today since the nasdaq kept going up. The stupidity of IB cost me 50K. later on, I received a message from IB "over excessive order submission, and my account is flagged". On Tuesday this week, I had the same problem but that time I did not receive IB message about the excessive submission warning.

this problem occurred a number of times when there were too many positions in my account. I wonder any one came across the same problem.
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Half of the people on this site are IB staff, and it's run by IB. So do you think that you will get some where by complaining here?
 
If this problem was caused by the 50 order per second limit. Then IBs software should either queue the orders for a few seconds or simply reject them if they exceed this limit.
Not lock them up for an hour in a pending status. That would be really crap.

There must be another reason why this happened.
 
Quote from zhexin2:

I am a program trader. I shorted around 300 stocks of totally 4.5 million dollars. when I decided to close those positions, IB refused to take my order. All the liquidating orders were in the status "acknowledged but not transmitted". Until One hour later, my order started to take effective. This is very horrible today since the nasdaq kept going up. The stupidity of IB cost me 50K. later on, I received a message from IB "over excessive order submission, and my account is flagged". On Tuesday this week, I had the same problem but that time I did not receive IB message about the excessive submission warning.

this problem occurred a number of times when there were too many positions in my account. I wonder any one came across the same problem.
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If this problem has happened in the past (which it must have according to the part I highlighted in bold) then you are responsible for not dealing with it previously.

It seems you just ignored it when it happened in the past and this is the first time that you really got burnt by it (when the market moved against you).

Why don't you talk to IB about what is causing it instead of posting here? I would think if you are a big trader they would work with you to up your limits.
 
"Why don't you talk to IB about what is causing it instead of posting here? I would think if you are a big trader they would work with you to up your limits."

one should encourage people to post. we can all learn from someone else's experience.
in general IB treats everybody equally they skip the headache of dealing with the prima dona traders of prop shops.
 
Quote from newguy05:



IB is for people who trades in the 5 and low 6 figures because IB has such a wide varity of different products all under 1 roof, like the jack of all trades, but it's not really a good platform and terrible customer service.
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The service that they offer to professionals is excellent.
 
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