IB TWS greeks going bad.....!!!

tommcginnis said:
Your stories remind me of my own long list of experiences.
In point of fact, I have been very lucky over time -- and perhaps no more so than today when, as the market turned (and I'm assessing -- OR TRYING -- coming market conditions), my inability to have the numbers guiding my analytics was only comforted by ye ol' net liq. a'climbing, climbing, climbing. Were it falling, falling, falling............ yeah. You're right: I'd be singing a different tune.

AND HERE IT IS, 9:00PM ET, AND WE'RE DOWN 10 SPX POINTS.
(If this is a contest, you just WON.)
Sheeeeee-it.
More...

I do like IB when you're on the institutional side, but the retail side is rough.

Try calling IB in market hours as a retail trader. Impossible.

As an institutional client, you usually get picked up in less than a minute. I've already discussed the inability of the programs to calculate correctly during any sort of heavy volume, but I resolved it by using a third party application.
 
"They're ba-aaaaack."

Everything appears hunky-dory, which is great, as I'm going to try to write a little extra in light of the rapidly diminishing 12.5 vol.

Gotta go!



(Okay -- one more thing: I felt a little sheepish when I brought up TWS and saw all the greeks and IV sitting there, like "Of *course* it's all good. You worry-wort." But then I remembered that intermindibly-long time when you'd notice something hinky in your TWS numbers somewhere, and figure "Bad data" and that it would sort itself out in an hour, and then it would spread across that underlying, or across an expiry or Quote Monitor page (just like this!), and you'd call a buddy and compare, and their numbers were *completely* different, and Holy Cow! and you get in a 3-way with IB and they say that their numbers are different from yet ours, and Holy Shit!.... and it's a full scrub, and a new Java install, and new TWS install, and a platform rebuild, and and and..... And I don't feel so sheepish.)

I am a great fan of TWS -- and for that matter, of IB.
It doesn't mean I'm blind, or that they've not cost me $$$$ on ocassion.
True dat.
 
I gave up with IB years ago it's cheap, looks cheap and the functions are cheap, and mostly wrong! I would never trade multiple lots as I do with my real broker -margin is also a shambles on IB
 
In general it's best to not trust the greeks from your broker. Brokers use proprietary methods for greeks and they vary from broker to broker. Message boards are full of complaints about "TOS is right and IB is wrong" and vice versa.

The one thing that's always consistent (in my observation) among brokers is the bid/ask price. You can calculate your own greeks off the bid, ask or mid quite reliably in Excel or a custom program. At least then you have a clear understanding of where *your* greeks come from and you aren't at the mercy of your broker's next software update.
 
I was using Think or Swin for backtesting on options and was using the delta and % as part of my strategy to choose the right spread but now that I am using real money in IB (TOS is not available in Canada). In IB, I see Delta but what about the % I had in TOS, where can I find it ? If unavailable on IB how can I find it or calculate it ?
 
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