IB Improvements (Part 3)

To date we've pretty much focused on suggestions to improve TWS software. IB has certainly come a long way toward making those improvements. Just so that they don't run out of things to do since they've implemented so many of the suggestions (LOL) I'd like to suggest that they focus more on their customer reports on their website. They have started to do that to some extent, offering quicken downloads, and 1099's online. However, virtually all other brokers have easily searchable transaction histories for buys, sells, cash transactions, etc, by date or specified period, and by symbol. I'd love to see that offered in the near future. Any chance of that Def?

99

PS: Barron's web based broker ratings are this week's cover story:

http://online.wsj.com/barrons/artic...60,00.html?mod=this_weeks_barrons_features_hs

This is what they said about IB (who got 4.7 out of 5 for "Trade Executions 2nd only to Terra Nova with 4.8):

Interactive Brokers, another direct-access brokerage, also earned 3 1/2 stars. Laura Schueneman, IB's VP of Operations, tells Barron's that their customers want low commissions, direct access, and best execution -- and don't care about mutual funds or bonds. "We focus on the actual trade process instead of focusing on making the interface everything to everyone," she says. Among the features offered by IB is a multi-currency account, allowing customers to fund an account in one currency and trade in four or five others. IB has opened up their application program interface (API), allowing their tech-savvy customers to program their own front-ends in Excel, Visual Basic or Java.

 
Originally posted by agent99
To date we've pretty much focused on suggestions to improve TWS software. IB has certainly come a long way toward making those improvements. Just so that they don't run out of things to do since they've implemented so many of the suggestions (LOL) I'd like to suggest that they focus more on their customer reports on their website. They have started to do that to some extent, offering quicken downloads, and 1099's online. However, virtually all other brokers have easily searchable transaction histories for buys, sells, cash transactions, etc, by date or specified period, and by symbol. I'd love to see that offered in the near future. Any chance of that Def?

99

PS: Barron's web based broker ratings are this week's cover story:

http://online.wsj.com/barrons/artic...60,00.html?mod=this_weeks_barrons_features_hs

This is what they said about IB (who got 4.7 out of 5 for "Trade Executions 2nd only to Terra Nova with 4.8):

Interactive Brokers, another direct-access brokerage, also earned 3 1/2 stars. Laura Schueneman, IB's VP of Operations, tells Barron's that their customers want low commissions, direct access, and best execution -- and don't care about mutual funds or bonds. "We focus on the actual trade process instead of focusing on making the interface everything to everyone," she says. Among the features offered by IB is a multi-currency account, allowing customers to fund an account in one currency and trade in four or five others. IB has opened up their application program interface (API), allowing their tech-savvy customers to program their own front-ends in Excel, Visual Basic or Java.
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Interesting post. searchable transaction histories for buys, sells, cash transactions, etc, by date or specified period, and by symbol would be great.
 
Both upgrades on demo and regular account access are non-responding,
system started downloading
latest jar files but dropped out after about 20%..

Is anyone else having simmilar difficulty?

TIA
 
A simple option would be to make it a spreadsheet (Excel) exportable file so that you could manipulate it as you wanted.
 
I like the idea of transaction history. All info is in a database so maybe not too difficult to produce. I'll request it but no promises on this one.

Demo: I just logged into the demo - no problem. (9:30 AM HK Monday = 8:30 PM NY Sunday). When trying the demo, unless using an API, you should not have to type a user name or password. Wait for the java to load and then hit go. If you do not have java loaded on your PC. Follow the java links available on the site, and install that first.

Barrons: the article was more fair this year, hopefully they'll add IB to the pricing list next week. I think comparing direct access to a firm like Schwab is like comparing apples to oranges. Nevertheless, it is interesting to put them together as I would assume most wealthy traders would have an account at a Schwab/Fidelity or I Bank as well as a direct access firm.
 
First improvement : alarms :

It is nice to have alarms on price but it is limited for futures
traders. We can only put one alarm for NQ and one alarm
for ES. It would be great to be able to have multiple alarms.

Maybe it can be done by having the same symbol in multiple
pages (so far it is not possible).

Second improvement : application title when reduced in taskbar:
I would like to be able to see bid ask and last price for my
favourite symbol instead of the name of the application (both
would be possible but an option to be able to do this would be
great). Of course the price in the taskbar would be realtime.
 
I would like to see two additional functions added to
the ActiveX interface.

1) a ModifyOrder method to update the price and auxprice of
an existing order.

2) a TransmitOrder method to transmit or retransmit a changed
order.

Without these basic functions modifying orders becomes
rather more error prone because you have to delete one,
wait for confirmation of the cancel then issue another one.
With these two simple functions you would just expose
functionality that is already there to the user.

And while we're at it why not one more

3) GetUniqueOrderID - to get a unique valid order id for
creating an order. I realize there are various workarounds
but none of them clean.
 
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