IB trader workstation worth learning ? or piece of junk ?

[narafa]

what price cap means ?

IB implements algorithms to cap the price of your orders before sending them to the exchange. These algorithms have multiple reasons, where the main reason behind them is to prevent fat finger mistakes and potential manipulation. I know that because I used to work in the brokerage industry before and I am working in financial software systems now, so those validations on broker level are very common, however, IB are really over-doing them + in some cases they are implementing them totally incorrect.

I don't know exactly how the algorithms work, but generally speaking they have a -+3% price band around the reference price (Which supposedly gets updated with a certain frequency, so that 3% band is dynamic). If you try to place a buy limit order above that band or a sell limit order below that band, they will cap the order to the band price limit.

With fast moving markets, the price caps does not update as fast and thus it leaves you with either a trade which you can't execute at current market prices or with a position you hold which you can't close at current market price (So you either wait for their band re-adjustment to be able to send your orders or to call them to manually remove the cap for that particular instrument), where both in my opinion are in violation of regulations as they are holding your orders hostage without any valid reason, with or without intention to delay your execution, this becomes a major problem as they are not handling/treating orders in the way they should be.

In my opinion, this is a material breach.

 

[helpme_please]

I use TWS a lot. It's only junk if you don't know how to use it. It's gold when you know how to.

I just downloaded trader work station from IB. It seems to have zillion features and lot of tweaking build into it.

I understand take a month to two to become comfortable with it, and you don't want to open a position or close order Du to unfamiliarity with software. Is IB Trader workstation is powerful software that worth to learn or it's piece of junk that makes your trading more complicate due to all unneeded feature build into it ?

I just want be sure i'm not wasting my time and later doesn't have to more to another platform. Thanks for your insight.

 

[schizo]

I use TWS a lot. It's only junk if you don't know how to use it. It's gold when you know how to.

Their chart is definitely a POS. The worst in its class.

 

[Vindago]

TWS is Ok, it is relatively easy to use and it is flexible. I have been using it for 6+ years and I am generally happy with it. It has some issues and some tools that I would like are not availble but overall it is OK

 

[El_Cubano]

It obviously varies from user to user and how they use/push the software.

But there are a great many issues with the software. From minor glitches/issues to sketchy bug filled builds that are seemingly released without any testing and kill the performance.

 

[d0rian]

I just downloaded trader work station from IB. It seems to have zillion features and lot of tweaking build into it.

I understand take a month to two to become comfortable with it, and you don't want to open a position or close order Du to unfamiliarity with software. Is IB Trader workstation is powerful software that worth to learn or it's piece of junk that makes your trading more complicate due to all unneeded feature build into it ?

I just want be sure i'm not wasting my time and later doesn't have to more to another platform. Thanks for your insight.

If you're even asking this question -- or at least asking it in this way -- I'm going to go ahead and say that it's probably not worth your time. (That's not meant as snark, but rather genuine advice that I hope saves you some time.) Or let me put it another way: you're probably not the type of user for which its strengths are going to outweigh its drawbacks. If you're already framing the question in terms of a time-consuming learning-curve, and fixating on "all the unneeded features", it's a near certainty that you're going to be annoyed and confused by all of the annoying glitches, clunky interface, unintuitive labels and menus, etc. If you're inclined to view software through a lens of everything it does poorly or inadequately, or time of yours that it wastes because of awful and outdated documentation, TWS is going to give you no shortage of things to complain about. I complain about it on a daily basis. Some of their bugs, and their reps' lack of knowledge is downright appalling. But it's also the fullest-featured retail software (for MY needs) out there, and it's not even all that close. So I put up with it, because I'm inclined to view it through a lens of what it allows me to do in spite of its (many) drawbacks. So yes, I'm making some assumptions about what kind of user you are based on how you asked the question...but I'm inclined to say that you'll find it wildly more frustrating than helpful. Good luck.

 

[TradeTune]

if i am subscribed to Tradestation non- brokerage account, can i use date feed from IB to execute strategies and execute then in IB? what tools are there for this purpose?

 

[TradeTune]

TWS classic is older templates, is it as equally robust as Newer Mosaic template in term of performance ?

 

[d0rian]

TWS classic is older templates, is it as equally robust as Newer Mosaic template in term of performance ?

Only speaking for myself here, but I've used Classic for 4+ years -- every time I try Mosaic (usually because some demo video I watch is showing things in Mosaic and I want to follow along), I run scurrying back to Classic because it feels so much more intuitive to me. I know of no feature (for my purposes which may be different from yours) that is a must-have and exists only in Mosaic; and I interact with Support a lot and have yet to run into any situation where I'm told 'oh yeah, you need to be using Mosaic for that to work / be available'. Put it this way: you're not using some dinosaur / deprecated product if you opt for Classic. It's not like you're using Windows 95 in the era of W10 or anything. As far as I know, it's every bit as feature-rich as Mosaic.

 

[TradeTune]

Only speaking for myself here, but I've used Classic for 4+ years -- every time I try Mosaic (usually because some demo video I watch is showing things in Mosaic and I want to follow along), I run scurrying back to Classic because it feels so much more intuitive to me. I know of no feature (for my purposes which may be different from yours) that is a must-have and exists only in Mosaic; and I interact with Support a lot and have yet to run into any situation where I'm told 'oh yeah, you need to be using Mosaic for that to work / be available'. Put it this way: you're not using some dinosaur / deprecated product if you opt for Classic. It's not like you're using Windows 95 in the era of W10 or anything. As far as I know, it's every bit as feature-rich as Mosaic.

thanks, excellent reply.