IB did not fill my stop order at all, lost 7 pts on emini instead of 3 pts, what should I do now? If you are doing this for living and trading large positions, what will you do to protect yourself from broker's error?
I don't want to stick to the PC all the time, any solutions?
The first thing you should do is confirm that you sent the stop in properly (ask the help desk to check your audit trail).
The current version of TWS does not execute globex stops during the after hours session. Given that you're writing at this hour (6AM East coast time), I am assuming you placed your stop during the evening session.
While this will not help you today, due to improved overnight liquidity and a demand from customers, IB's beta version TWS (will be the next release of the TWS) will allow you to configure your stoplimit for after hours trading.
You can use some of the 3rd party apps like autotrader and brackettrader to create simulated stops; you must leave you machine on though. The staps are held locally and trigger off the bid/ask. Sorry for your loss but ya really need to read up on all factors involved.
just to clarify - the TWS/IB is available during the overnight session. Mgmt made the decision not to support overnight stops on Globex as stops were getting triggered due to poor liquidity and wide markets. Since the decision was made, overnight Globex liquidity has improved and customers have requested the reinstatement of overnight stops. On the next release of the TWS, you can try the beta version from the website, you will be able to custom configure your stop limits (ie. you can choose to have them execute on the after hours session).