IB

Originally posted by egusc
go to account login, not trade login. If you do not have a universal account you need to upgrade your account type. I believe you then need to change your trading permissions.
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Egusc,
My account is recent enough that it started out as a Universal and the online helper at IB spent 1.5 hours this morning before forwarding the problem to programming. We checked permissions, etc. Everything I've completed with them to get the account going has been exactly what was required but whatever is done on their end seems not to get setup or completed or has problems. I guess if everything finally gets going it will be nice but then I'll be be watching with both eyes open to see how their platform performs. Too many troubles with actual trades and I'm gone - low commissions or not! I'm hoping someone just forgot to flip a switch or something; don't know, nor can they tell me yet. Maybe tomorrow I can trade? We'll see...
 
if i remember right, i was not impressed either when i opened my account at IB. but i wired the money and i was trading within like the next day or two. i hated the TWS platform initially but now i rather like it. maybe it is an acquired taste :) it seems like i have rarely had an outage affect me, as i use almost exclusively island and globex and options exchanges. i have never had to call them on the phone. i would agree that the email customer support is uninspiring at best, incompetent at worst.. i have a second account at another broker in that i can hedge with if i really need to. here is a recent dialogue i had with them (it seems like they didnt even read my question.):

Message:
I recently enabled futures in my universal (stock+options)
account. Well, now when I run TWS and
look at the Account, it says "Futures Only."
Is this just because the stock markets are
closed? Before the markets open I want to
make sure I haven't lost the stock+options ability
I had before.. thank you.

Reply:
Dear Trader,

Thanks for your inquiry.

Please do the following steps to upgrade your account to a universal
account
type:

1. Complete the Account Upgrade section of the Account Management
page.

2. Complete the Trading Permissions section of the Account Management
page.

3. Complete the Market Data Subscriptions section of the Account
Management
page.

If you have any further questions, please contact us.

i had already done everything they stated. my account worked correctly the next day, with no message or notification from them
 
Originally posted by CaroKann
i have a second account at another broker in that i can hedge with if i really need to.
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i understand the concept of having a 2nd broker, but how much are you supposed to have in the 2nd account? the same amount as the first account? say you have 50k in positions with broker 1, but you can't log in to exit them, are you supposed to have 50k at broker 2 to hedge???
 
futuresnaut,
Four days for a wire? It is supposed to be automated. Did you enter the info exactly as requested or did the bank cut off some of the ref info?

In any event, new accounts are not give permission to trade until funds are entered. If your money was credited Monday AM my guess is that that system will grant the trading permissions after the system reset Monday evening. If that's the case, you should be able to trade by 12:30 AM Tuesday.
 
Originally posted by def
futuresnaut,
Four days for a wire? It is supposed to be automated. Did you enter the info exactly as requested or did the bank cut off some of the ref info?

In any event, new accounts are not give permission to trade until funds are entered. If your money was credited Monday AM my guess is that that system will grant the trading permissions after the system reset Monday evening. If that's the case, you should be able to trade by 12:30 AM Tuesday.
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Defer,
A little history for ya. The wire was sent before noon on Monday 8/12/2002 (that's two weeks ago). By the time I got home from the bank that day (where I personally had them complete the wire with all the information via IB's website; even printed out the page for them) and logged on around mid-afternoon the funds showed in my account under "Cash Transactions". So maybe that part was automated.

The frustrating part was that it wasn't until Thursday 8/15/2002 morning that I was able to have TWS recognize the funds. I couldn't trade because I couldn't set my trading limits. Every time I tried to access and change my limits I'd get the message "You must be Approved and your account must be Funded before you can access this section." It took several emails over a four-day period where I had to finally forward screen shots so someone could figure out what was wrong at IB and correct it. Oddly enough, to this day I still don't know what was wrong and probably never will.

Starting today I began a two-week period where I intended to trade full-time but NOW I can't get TWS to even accept a trade! Online IBHELP3 spent 1.5 hours this morning asking me to check my permissions, etc. - all of which were fine. Finally I was told the problem was not likely on my end and it was being turned over to programming! I would be contacted via email or phone asap when the issue was resolved. Haven't heard a peep since. Get real! This is simply opening an account to begin trading! How hard can that be????

I don't know what all it takes behind the scenes to setup an account but needless to say I don't have a warm fuzzy about IB right now. So if there's anything you can do to help resolve this situation I'd appreciate it.


FUTURESNUT
 
FWIW I am pretty sure that there was a tiny bug on IB´s website regarding TP. The idea is that you check appropiate boxes for TP and go thru trading exams etc. Then you get status "TP pending approval". You wait 1 or 2 days and then you can see the boxes for TP checked & grey, no more "TP pending approval".

Ok, here comes the bug: Back in July this "TP pending approval" just remained there forever and boxes were not checked & grey, but of course you could trade. It needed just a mouse click again on TP and then the "TP pending approval" disappeared. I hope you could follow. Nothing severe, but it was somehow confusing to see this "pending approval" for weeks.
 
All my trading permissions were set correctly and greyed out. My account status had everything correct. Leave it to me to come across yet a "new" bug?
 
Must have been a 24-hr bug! Woke up this morning and son-of-a-gun! TWS took my trades!

Whatever switches are flipped it must take an overnight "reset" to have them take effect. I did get a call from IB while trading to see if TWS was working.

Now if I can just turn a profit... :)
 
I like IB for their cheap commissions and rapid executions. However, Tradestation is looking better everyday. One can execute 1000 shares for only $9! Also, their data feed is only $99 per month. That's alot cheaper than the data feed from Real tick. Does anyone use Tradestation? If so, are they good? Speed of execution, data and reliability? I could give a rat's ass about the other stuff.
 
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