[Does someone know the IB email address for feedback about JTWS? I want to send the following comments to IB]
I opened an account at IB last month and have now done about
600 trades. Overall and I am very pleased with the execution
quality and the performance of the JTWS.
The useability of JTWS could use some improvement. Here are
my initial reactions after using it for a few weeks.
*) It is a pain to add a ticker, esp. a stock. You have to go through
two dialogs first type in symbol name, then select order route..
I would like to see a TextField at the top where you can just type in
a bunch of stocks like "SUNW CSCO ORCL AMAT QCOM" and have JTWS add
each one automatically with a default route.
*) The Route should not be part of the 'Contract'
I trade many stocks during the day, and I don't have enough
space to have separate lines for each symbol for each route.
My choice of route depends on market conditions and the liquidity
of each stock. If the market is moving very fast, I will use ISLAND
for liquid stocks, otherwise I will use BEST or REDI.
I would like the ability to change the route for all contracts
on a page so I can quickly change routing based on market conditions.
If Route is made separate from the symbol, then you could have a
default route in the Settings->Order screen.
*) Customization of Order Entry Pages
- I would like more control over the displayed columns for a contract.
In particular, I don't want to see the bid size and ask size. I would
replace them with the info described below.
- For 'Contract', I would to just see the symbol. It is hard to read
"SUNW S USD ISLAND NMS".
- I would like to see my open position on this contract
# shares + avg price.
Having to check the 'Account Page' takes too much time; this
information should be integrated on the entry page just like the
*excellent* order status updates the 'Quantity' and 'Status'
columns as the order is filled.
- I would like to see *my* realtime gain (loss) on my open
position in this contract, rather than the contract 'Change' for
the day.
- BUG: If I try to rearrange the 'Status' column, I noticed the original
column location still has the status color changes.
- There needs to be an option to preload the quantity size with the
size of your open position in that contract instead of always using
the default order size. If I am long 1000 shares, and create a sell
market/limit ticket for the contract, it should show 1000 shares by
default. If I create a buy ticket, it should just use the default
order size, since I am adding to the position.
One situation where this would help is when I try to sell limit 500
shares and get partially filled so I have 137 shares remaining. I
want to quickly sell the rest at a slightly lower price, but it takes
time because I havce to manually enter the 137 shares.
- I would like to change the behaviors when you click the bid or click the ask.
It currently defaults to Buy at Ask, Sell at Bid, but usually I am trying to
do the opposite.
*) I would like a more sophisticated default order size. Right now
you can set it to a fixed amount like 200 shares. However, the number
of shares I trade depends on the price and volatility of the
security. The best solution would be to allow individual defaults per
symbol/contract. An alternative to default order size would be to
specify the trade $ size e.g. 20,000 and have the computer calculate
the #of shares rounded to nearest 100. So, I want to risk $20k per
trade, and then for a $50 stock, I should trade 400 shares.
*) I hate confirmation dialogs. Please have an option to turn these
off. If I use your software 6-8 hours per day, I am not going to
accidentally select Order->Cancel Page, but JTWS pops up a confirmation
"Are you sure you want to cancel all the orders on this page? Yes No"
Having to click Yes is a distraction and costs me time.
Also, it is much too difficult to delete contracts on a page. If I
hit 'Cancel' on a contract, it should delete the row for the Contract
plus any order rows that had been created. Instead, it pops up a
message saying I can't delete the contract since there are orders.
When you have 10 orders for a contract it is pain to cancel each one
and then cancel the symbol.
*) VERY ANNOYING - When I am executing many orders all at once, they
orders starts automatically disappearing after they are executed. The
problem is that if I am selecting a row or editing a quantity while
this happens, the selection shifts when the other row is deleted.
This causes my edit to get interrupted, and is very distracting!
I would prefer for orders to not dissappear automatically and
instead have a button to clean up these orders when I am ready to.
*) On the Account Page, I want to see the realtime gain (loss) on my
open positions.
*) From the Account Page, there should be a way to close all open
positions using a specified route, or at least fill a new order page
with all of the positions.
This is very important because if there is a market changing event
where you need to get our of your positions quickly, it is very
difficult to do with JTWS.
I have the following comments on execution:
*) Please add an ECN Only Route. Your BEST execution route does not
work for fast stocks because it prefers MMs SNET way too much...*)
The ECN Only Route should not include ECNs which may SNET a MM.
