IB TWS - pre-existing ES buy stop not executed in a rising market... any insights?

Good, the 2nd chart got through intact. Now, to address some of your excellent points already made...

To OldTrader and pspr, among others: actually, if this turns out to be my, end-user error, I'd be thrilled. Really -- since it would restore my confidence in TWS simulated stop orders. Unfortunately, that possibility appears unlikely. Here's why.

On my end: I don't remember the color changes, if any (this was 5 days ago, after all). However, I do remember that 1) a C for Cancel was displayed in my Workspace on that line and 2) the same buy stop was displayed in Pending. Both had been there for an hour, at least. Wouldn't either of those 2 signs, let alone both combined, indicate conclusively that the order has been Transmitted? There were no other orders after 3 pm at all.

On IB's end: I reported the incident to IB shortly after 4:15 pm EST last Friday. The customer service rep checked Time and Sales on the spot -- that took her at least 3 or 4 minutes, agreed that there definitely seemed to be a problem, set up a ticket # and forwarded it to Technical Support. The bottom line is -- she could easily see that the buy stop had, in fact, been Transmitted long before the time in question. (IB's records show the exact time, to the second, of each Transmit; I don't have access to that in TWS, correct?)

Today had a nice long online chat with a different CSR -- it seems that it could be weeks, not days, before any resolution. Great...

To pspr, again: As I was training myself on TWS last month, I was acutely aware that Globex has no native Stop order, only Stop Limit, and that IB's Stop orders were simulated. Again, up to now, in several dozen ES trades, I had no problems with IB's own Stop, both for stop loss and profit-taking exit. If that IB stop "simulation" is not 100% reliable -- something also suggested to me in a private message a few minutes ago (thanks!) -- then, hey, I'll gladly adjust the order types I use in the future!
 
Apex:

Just wanted to draw your attention to the Backwardation post above regarding stops after the end of day. Something to check out.

OldTrader
 
Quote from late apex:

.. (IB's records show the exact time, to the second, of each Transmit; I don't have access to that in TWS, correct?).....
More...


There are two ways to monitor the communication of TWS with its servers:

An excerpt from the release notes:

_____________________________________

Order Audit Trail Feature for Customers
When you enable the Audit Trail feature, TWS will display your order
activity for the day. Each day's activity is saved to a daily audit
file in your XML directory (represented by an arbitrary series of
letters) and named according to the day of the week. The next week,
each daily file is overwritten as the new audit file is given the
same name. To enable this feature, from the Configure menu select
Misc and then check Create Audit Trail. To view daily order activity,
from the View menu select Audit Trail. To save a file so that it is
not overwritten with the next week's file, view the file and from the
browser's File menu, select Save As. Give the file a name with an
identifying string, for example the date (Audit Trail 12_04). You can
also rename the file directly from the XML directory when TWS is
closed.

______________________________________________

I strongly recommend to enable this feature and to keep all audit
files by properly renaming them. In case of trouble these files may be helpful to you.

Then there are two files: msgIn.t and msgOut.t which protocol all the FIX-Protocol messages from TWS to its servers. These files are not easily readable, you have to "speak" FIX to understand them. The above audit trail is the readable version of these files. They are overwritten at each start of the TWS.

In such cases as yours, I recommend to make a screenshot of the TWS, showing the order, instead of your charts. This will deliver more relevant information (you should remove personal info before publishing it).

regards

Bernd Kuerbs
 
Always use native STOP type orders where possible. That means STOP LIMIT of globex traded instruments. This means that if something goes wrong on IBs STOP server (where stops are simulated) then your order is still alive and ticking at the exchage.

A great example of this was about a week ago, YM (ECBOT) stop orders were not gettting triggered. ECBOT does not offer native stop orders so all orders are simulated. Well this was only happening to ECBOT/LIFFE GTC stop orders and it went on for three days before IB figured out it was their problem and put out a fix.

So to stress my point, always, always use native stop orders where possible.
 
Quote from shadowpug:

Always use native STOP type orders where possible. That means STOP LIMIT of globex traded instruments. This means that if something goes wrong on IBs STOP server (where stops are simulated) then your order is still alive and ticking at the exchage.

A great example of this was about a week ago, YM (ECBOT) stop orders were not gettting triggered. ECBOT does not offer native stop orders so all orders are simulated. Well this was only happening to ECBOT/LIFFE GTC stop orders and it went on for three days before IB figured out it was their problem and put out a fix.

So to stress my point, always, always use native stop orders where possible.
More...

I am new at this . Are there any native stops on ECBOT ? Or all, even "stop limit" are simulated ?
hombre
 
Quote from OldTrader:

It almost seems inexplicable. Particularly since I've had my account there for several years now with no such incident. And with nothing personal intended here, what we usually find out when confronted with something inexplicable is that there was some type of order entry error.
More...

Yep, that's right: INEXPLICABLE THAT IB WOULD SCREW UP ON A
STOP. That has never happened to anyone here at ET whatsoever.
I do not believe OldTrader even trades with IB. Maybe works with
IB, but does not trade. Otherwise, he would of experienced at
least one screw up by now. PERIOD.
 
My brother had a similar issue awhile back when trading topix futures--stops simply weren't being executed.

He called the help desk and during the phone conversation placed a stop order which was traded through (while the IB rep. watched it in real time). Anyway, turned out there was a problem from IB's end, which was resolved.

Bottom line: you gotta report this to the help-desk.

Doug
 
Quote from Backwardation:

Hi Oldtrader,

I believe that TWS considers NYSE hours as regular trading hours.

Backwardation
More...

Thanks for bring this fact to our attention. I called IB this AM to verify the procedure. Turns out you are exactly right. Stop orders after 4PM EST do not trigger unless you have checked a box under configuration to allow the triggering after "regular trading hours".

In all likelihood then there's a good chance that the reason this particular stop order did not trigger is because it was after 4PM EST and Apex had not checked this box.

Thanks again for the info.

OldTrader
 
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