IB - "Order Transmitted, Not Yet Acknowledged"

[Rui S]

You don't do anything over port 4000. Everything must be encrypted so 4001 is the only one that matters.

This has nothing to do with your order status. It's likely due to the fact that their servers or exchange servers (unlikely) are over-utilized at this point and cannot immediately acknowledge the order. This happens regularly when you submit orders at night for US RTH.

Thank you for your input.

I think you are correct, IB's servers must be overloaded.

The fact that the 4000 port is not working might make it even worse as all the orders must be redirected through 4001 port.

 

[Rui S]

Yes but not for over-utilization reasons (for out RTH). I had this issue once in my long relationship with IB with tbills. It had something to do with a pricing issue and configuration setting that I had to change after conversing with IB. If it matters to you I am happy to try to dig it up

Would you please elaborate your solution?

Everything that helps with this issue is very welcome.

The truth is that yesterday I was lucky, but I went through a few bad moments when I needed to close my position and that order was pending there for what seemed like an eternity.

I actually had to cancel that order and then placed another one that was accepted and filled normally.

That´s what I consider is not acceptable. Trading is hard enough, I can´t even consider having pending orders waiting to be filled.

 

[Rui S]

I noticed this behavior as well. Interestingly the pattern seems to be coincidental with market volatile conditions. (Pretty much every day in March 2020) Hence i believe is due to extra time required for their server to check for customer margin requirements. Or something other else, for instance to prevent disruption of market liquidity. Indeed adding delays let the broker/exchange to manage better the flows.. I wouldn’t be surprise if this the real root cause. At some point the delays especially overnight were almost a minute something that breaks completely scalping trading. The solution was to trade during these times with a different broker.

Thank you for your input.

I think you are right, currently it is happening when the market is faster.

In any case, yesterday and the day before it was a bit fast but not extreme. I have traded more extreme / volatile than these two days and the order execution used to be fast enough.

Would you mind to share the name of that different broker you use as alternative, please?

Thanks.

 

[Rui S]

My experience as well. When the market is fast, orders are taking longer to process.

Yes, you are correct.
Unfortunately, that´s exactly when we need the orders to execute faster too...

But what is strange is that it doesn't happen with all orders, just a few. It also happened to have one of these "pending" orders hanging there and enter another order that filled immediately, leaving the first still pending...

The problem is we can never know when it will happen again. I can´t trade under these conditions.

 

[Rui S]

You seem to assume that this message means that your order has not been submitted from your computer to IB's servers. My impression is that this message means that IB has sent the order to the exchange, but that the exchange has not yet confirmed to IB that the order is placed.
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/...imeactivitymonitoring/order_status_colors.htm

Thank you for your input.

No, I didn't assume that my order hadn't been submitted from my computer to IB's servers.

Exactly the opposite, I was sure that the order was stuck in IB's servers.

 

[HobbyTrading]

Thank you for your input.

No, I didn't assume that my order hadn't been submitted from my computer to IB's servers.

Exactly the opposite, I was sure that the order was stuck in IB's servers.

Then why did you focus on ports 4000 and 4001 of your computer? That has nothing to do with the interaction between IB's servers and the exchange.

 

[Rui S]

Then why did you focus on ports 4000 and 4001 of your computer? That has nothing to do with the interaction between IB's servers and the exchange.

Ports 4000 and 4001 of IB's servers test page:

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/cgi-bin/conn_test.pl

IB's chat support asked me to try both ways (SSL and non-SSL)

 

[HobbyTrading]

Ports 4000 and 4001 of IB's servers test page:

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/cgi-bin/conn_test.pl

IB's chat support asked me to try both ways (SSL and non-SSL)

All I can say to this is: if the brakes of your car don't work it makes no sense to investigate the gearbox.

 

[Rui S]

All I can say to this is: if the brakes of your car don't work it makes no sense to investigate the gearbox.

Can´t say that you are wrong

 

[DiceAreCast]

I will try to dig it up this weekend.

Would you please elaborate your solution?

Everything that helps with this issue is very welcome.

The truth is that yesterday I was lucky, but I went through a few bad moments when I needed to close my position and that order was pending there for what seemed like an eternity.

I actually had to cancel that order and then placed another one that was accepted and filled normally.

That´s what I consider is not acceptable. Trading is hard enough, I can´t even consider having pending orders waiting to be filled.