IB new forex spreads

Timber Hill, LLC is the prop global arbitrage group associated with Interactive Brokers. So if they are not making makrets on IDEAL Pro FX, then why does TMBR show as a designated counterpary on executions. Do other "customers" show up as designated counterparties on trades?

"customers"

I find it interesting that they show up as a counter party and it is officially stated that they do not make markets on IDEAL Pro FX. But yet Timber Hill, LLC will make a market in some dog @#%$ equity or equity option...

I think that at times, based on market conditions, your position, and available margin, etc.... the only MM available is Timber Hill, LLC = Interactive Brokers, LLC = MM Bucket

And no other IB customer give a @#$% on what the potential implications surrounding this are? GL GT

PS - and you can save the "Why would they move the currency market just to lean on your position arguments" It is called "we know who you are, where you live, your account balance, your trading history, trading style, position, margin, the current market conditions ==> we can lean on you in and out... and then charge commission on top ==> great cost of trading - thx"
 
Quote from MiamiHurricanes:

Timber Hill, LLC is the prop global arbitrage group associated with Interactive Brokers. So if they are not making makrets on IDEAL Pro FX, then why does TMBR show as a designated counterpary on executions. Do other "customers" show up as designated counterparties on trades?

"customers"

I find it interesting that they show up as a counter party and it is officially stated that they do not make markets on IDEAL Pro FX. But yet Timber Hill, LLC will make a market in some dog @#%$ equity or equity option...

I think that at times, based on market conditions, your position, and available margin, etc.... the only MM available is Timber Hill, LLC = Interactive Brokers, LLC = MM Bucket

And no other IB customer give a @#$% on what the potential implications surrounding this are? GL GT

PS - and you can save the "Why would they move the currency market just to lean on your position arguments" It is called "we know who you are, where you live, your account balance, your trading history, trading style, position, margin, the current market conditions ==> we can lean on you in and out... and then charge commission on top ==> great cost of trading - thx"
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Stop trading currencies at IDEALPRO/IDEAL.
My experiences were mostly bad.
I have a couple of interesting stories to tell
(e.g. trades busted 11 hours later violating their own "Timeliness of Notification"! Trades busted because "the market was >0.5% away" while IDEAL was quoting a spread >3.5%!!!! etc.etc.).

IB is a great broker. Trade futures.
I am still with them, but I do my forex trades elsewhere.
IDEALPRO is full of bs, and expensive.
 
Also, when I have a position on, I see the bid/offer get crossed against me vs. other brokers. Then "magically" once I close my position convergence. Hmmmmm just a coincidence, just a coincedence, just a coincidence. The frequency and consistency with which this is occurring points to only one conclusion ==> leaning on the position.

It all goes down to time of duration that the market available to you is in line with where the market is trading. Somehow, when a position is on, "magically" that time of duration is reduced substantially. No position and there is negligible difference.
 
Once there was 50pips spike on USD/CAD on a dead market (european morning hours, no news, no nothing). I was stopped out exactly at the end of the spike (worst price) with a huge slippage. I checked time&sales and there were trades executed in better prices than mine. It seems that my stop took 7-10 seconds to get activated.... Go figure.

There is nothing you can do. You can file complains all the time wasting your time, or as I said, go on and trade futures. (Don't use any simulated orders. Only native. Trailing stops can take seconds before they activate in fast markets or loaded IB servers)

Good luck.
 
Quote from MiamiHurricanes:

Also, when I have a position on, I see the bid/offer get crossed against me vs. other brokers. Then "magically" once I close my position convergence. Hmmmmm just a coincidence, just a coincedence, just a coincidence. The frequency and consistency with which this is occurring points to only one conclusion ==> leaning on the position.

It all goes down to time of duration that the market available to you is in line with where the market is trading. Somehow, when a position is on, "magically" that time of duration is reduced substantially. No position and there is negligible difference.
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I will address 2 points: (1) about the integrity of the IDEALPRO market place (I am NOT discussing IDEAL, which is like the odd-lot or small order facility, and is going to be subsumed soon); and (2) Timber Hill role in IDEALPRO.

SKEWED OR BIASED PRICES
Sorry, your observation must be created by something other than the empirical IDEALPRO activity. There is no quote biasing since IB is not a counterparty. We don't care about anything except how to route your order to the NBBO as quickly as possible. IDEALPRO is simply an assembly of prices provided by various liquidity providers (generally banks), and IB customers.
Customers can trade with the liquidity providers and with each other. The banks are order receivers, not order generators, and therefore are not able to see each other's prices, nor trade with each other (at least not over IDEALPRO; they trade with each other in the interbank market, for example using RDS or EBS)

If you see a situation where there is some crossed price, or other inconsistency, call Customer Service and report it IMMEDIATELY. Ask them to send the observation to the head of risk management. Or send me an email via E-T. I am in charge of the FX platform and if there is anything more than a straight assembly of liquidity provider quotes to make a quasi-order book, I would like to know because that would mean there is a technical problem of some kind.

Regarding the relationship between IB and its affiliate, Timber Hill, for Forex:
Timber Hill is treated as a both a liquidity provider and a customer of IB. TIMBER HILL Hill DOES NOT KNOW -- NOT ONCE, NOT EVER, NEVER -- ANYTHING PRIVATE ABOUT CLIENT POSITIONS, CLIENT ORDERS, CLIENT ANYTHING. NOT BEFORE THE TRADE, NOT AFTER A TRADE. NEVER.
The only interaction between a Timber order and a client order happens when a client wants to sell(buy) at a price where Timber is NBBO. Or Timber wants to trade where a client order is NBBO. At the exact moment of the trade, both parties know that someone else had an interest to take the other side. This is exactly the same information that any trader knows at the moment they do a trade, no more, no less.
If an order comes back with exchange=TMBR it just means the client hit a standing order that was the NBBO and was provided by Timber or other large institutional client. If the exchange=IBFX, it means the counterparty was another client and the trade crossed inside IB's systems. In other words, if a clients hits a Timber Hill standing order, the trade happens on TMBR. If Timber, or any client hits your standing order, the trade happens on IBFX.

THERE IS NO (ZERO, NONE) DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ACCESS, DATA FEEDS, PRECEDENCE, OR PRIORITY BETWEEN IB CLIENT ORDERS AND TIMBER HILL ORDERS. TIMBER HAS NO FOREKNOWLEDGE OR ADVANTAGE OVER CLIENT ORDERS IN ANY WAY.

I hope I make my point clear. I apologize if my presentation was somewhat blunt but I want to be completely unambiguous on this point. THERE IS NO, NONE, NEVER ANY CONFLICT OF INTEREST ON IDEALPRO OF ANY KIND. That is why we built it on the ECN model, and not as an FCM type like, for example, Oanda.
 
OK, clear.

Maybe now you can tell us whether busting a trade 11 hours later is against your "Timeliness of Notification" stated at your webpages or not. This exposed me to a big risk, carrying a position I didn't know about.

Who gives you the right to do that? What gives the counterparty the right to ask for a bust so late?
 
As for IDEAL, I read many times in these boards that you can place an order between the bid-ask and wait for a fill. Right....

If IDEAL is quoting a spread of 3.5% (which it does in many pairs), getting a fill >0.5% away from the midpoint but still within the bid-ask means that the counterparty can ask to bust the trade. It happened to me. It is outright unethical.

Yet, whoever gets currency positions <25k auto-liquidated, the liquidation will take place in IDEAL, not IDEAL PRO. Huge spreads will be paid.
Am I entitled to bust those liquidation trades if I get ripped off more than 0.5% than where the market is? This happens all the time, but I bet none of your customers called in to bust those trades. They have insufficient margin anyway, so they should pay up the huge spread, right?

If you have the right to bust trades taking place >0.5% from the market, then you should get your clown marketmakers at IDEAL to quote a spread of <1%. FULLSTOP.

I am not here to throw mud at IB. I am here to throw mud at IDEAL(PRO); that's the only thing I have been complaining over and over and had all my problems with. IB is a great broker, just forget the FX part.
 
Quote from KS96:

As for IDEAL, I read many times in these boards that you can place an order between the bid-ask and wait for a fill. Right....

If IDEAL is quoting a spread of 3.5% (which it does in many pairs), getting a fill >0.5% away from the midpoint but still within the bid-ask means that the counterparty can ask to bust the trade. It happened to me. It is outright unethical.

Yet, whoever gets currency positions <25k auto-liquidated, the liquidation will take place in IDEAL, not IDEAL PRO. Huge spreads will be paid.
Am I entitled to bust those liquidation trades if I get ripped off more than 0.5% than where the market is? This happens all the time, but I bet none of your customers called in to bust those trades. They have insufficient margin anyway, so they should pay up the huge spread, right?

If you have the right to bust trades taking place >0.5% from the market, then you should get your clown marketmakers at IDEAL to quote a spread of <1%. FULLSTOP.

I am not here to throw mud at IB. I am here to throw mud at IDEAL(PRO); that's the only thing I have been complaining over and over and had all my problems with. IB is a great broker, just forget the FX part.
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Don't confuse IDEAL and IDEALPRO. They are not the same thing.

Forget IDEAL. It is not a forex platform.
It is a currency conversion facility for people trading outside of their base currency in say, stocks, and who want to flatten back a small amount of money. We arent going to send an order for 73 USD/EUR to a big bank so we have to provide this facility.
But IDEAL is going away soon, and all the problems associated with it are going away. It would be best if you (anyone) avoided liquidations. It takes the control away from you and that is never a good thing. If a big liquidation is needed, there is no pricing issue as these go to the PRO market. The little ones may get poor fills, but we don't control the orders people are putting in. In fact, there are clients who have built APIs that automatically makes quotes around the PRO market and submit huge spreads but within the bust limit. I guess they make some kind of living from small orders trading on wide spreads.
But that too, will go away soon.

IDEALPRO is the forex platform and the spreads are interbank quality. That is where the interesting business is.
 
I don't confuse anything.

You didn't answer my question about busted transactions at IDEAL which take place between bid-ask but >0.5% off the market.

Also, the "Timeliness of Notification" problem I mentioned in my previous post it happened at IDEALPRO. Your rules should apply to all of us equally. If IB is unable to bust a trade & notify me in a timely manner, then IB or the counterparty should take the loss not me! 11 hours later!?!?.... who the f*ck was the counterparty?!?

Am I the only one here who had problems with busted trades at IDEAL & IDEALPRO?
 
Quote from IBj:

Don't confuse IDEAL and IDEALPRO. They are not the same thing.

Forget IDEAL. It is not a forex platform.
It is a currency conversion facility for people trading outside of their base currency in say, stocks, and who want to flatten back a small amount of money. We arent going to send an order for 73 USD/EUR to a big bank so we have to provide this facility.
But IDEAL is going away soon, and all the problems associated with it are going away. It would be best if you (anyone) avoided liquidations. It takes the control away from you and that is never a good thing. If a big liquidation is needed, there is no pricing issue as these go to the PRO market. The little ones may get poor fills, but we don't control the orders people are putting in. In fact, there are clients who have built APIs that automatically makes quotes around the PRO market and submit huge spreads but within the bust limit. I guess they make some kind of living from small orders trading on wide spreads.
But that too, will go away soon.

IDEALPRO is the forex platform and the spreads are interbank quality. That is where the interesting business is.
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What is happening to Ideal? What is going to replace it? AutoCoversion?

I am guessing Ideal has caused quite a few challenges. It is convenient, but damn near impossible to do a precise conversion. I still have .50 yen left in my account from my last conversion on Ideal.
 
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