Quote from mgmaggie:
These designs faults are intentional. IB continues to update and claim they are the cheapest or one of them. My brother and I have been comparing their feed and the Bid Ask almost always lags or in not accurate. They will ask you to provide screen shots, your logs but never "really address the situation".
Obviously these are money cash cows for IB with either data, smart routing, upgrading and releasing with known bugs as is evident in their release notes under the "oh we do this to provide a better service for our clients".
How many traders here have really every received a satisfactory response to an IB error let alone any remuneration. I have come to the obvious conclusion that IB knows their servers and upgrades have issues but it is far more profitable not fixing them.
I would never have believed the discrepencies had it not been for my brother and a few others comparing current real time data on receiving accurate timely fair data and executions.
IB almost always lags, is slower and the Bid Ask volume on TWS or Booktrader is not accurate. One IB rep stated, the volume can be off as a result of where Smart routing is looking to execute your desired position and what you are trading.
Is he kidding me?
I will keep my IB account as my secondary back up now as it is established and am executing the majority of my trades else where. Already I have less stress with my Bid Ask freezing everytime the market is going to move or slow executions.
It is not my internet as I have had it checked many times.
I am not going to recommend any broker but guys you should really check into what I am saying as IB in the long run will cost you more.
IB, there is always an issue. What every happened to simple? Obvious answer, you can't hide behind simple as it becomes clear much faster what is really going on.
I can add some more info if you like.
IB's MarketDepth-feed is from the very start (summer 2003, or was it 2002?) wrongly designed and implemented (I know this, as at that time I have deciphered the protocol to the bit and bytes). It is built to transport extremely fast, only the changes in the Depth-book, but thereby lacks (and that is the design problem) a "verify-completion-correction-recover" protocol.
Until IB redesigns the whole MarketDepth transport protocol (inclusive error-recovery) we will see the problems stated in this Thread (and many other ET-threads and Forums).
Or it will show by wrongly sorted price-rows in one or both levels. Or there will be Gaps and standing still. This all will happen once markets become volatile and wild (news breaks or Opening). And can happen in one or a few tickers you are looking at (sometimes only ES or NQ on Globex, the other time in YM, or some Stock). Further: it's per Account so if you see it in one TWS-account, your second TWS-account is still working perfectly (I have two TWS's running myself).
Anyway: This is a design-problem in the core and thereby (very) costly to solve. I wonder if IB will solve this structorally, ever (as they are aware of the problem for at least 6 years, already).
It is not profitable to fix but more profitable not too.
Hope it Helps
Hoi (designer of ButtonTrader).