IB's New Java Platform

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It's True, IB's new Java TWS is new and must change a lot in order to replace old TWS. But it is up to IB to design an interface that can "at least" be half of other current industry standard interfaces like RT3 and CyberX. IB must stop reinventing the wheel and copy the good features of other daytrading platforms while keeping commissions low.

Also, IB's Interactive Chat has been very poor lately, I have been left in the chat unattended for 15-45 minutes, I have to "YELL" and say "HELLOOOO" several times in the Chat before a representative decides to chat with me.
What is this kind of customer service ? ?. In what world is IB living, we are in year 2000 and IB customer service is answering questions as in the 80's, with telex and long distance faxes? ? ? Did they forget what is a IRC #Chatroom ? ?

If it weren't for the low commissions, IB would be history for me, and if they keep degrading their customer service I will be hitting Interactive Broker's BID to get out.

Sincerely,
hsanson
 
tntneo,
thanks for the suggestions, i'll pass them along as well. they make sense.

hsanson,
i can not speak for our chairman but I think we are catering to sophisticated traders who do not need their hands held to trade. i.e. what they care most about is low fees and fast and direct access into the market place. the graphs and bells and whistles you seem to like come with a price, take up bandwidth and are not wanted by everyone. we will be adding additional services (note the addition of the traders Tool Box on our web site) but many will be optional.

as for customer service, I am not going to defend such a long wait on a chat room box. did you try calling the 800 number? with the new release of the java I can imagine that the desk in the states is being overloaded with 1000's of chats. Try after hours if it is not urgent. the HK help desk, while busy, certainly is not being overloaded and the agents will be able to spend more time with you (they start at 8:30 AM HK time which is currently 7:30 PM EST).
 
Def,

I was using a feature of the Trading Software which
doesn't function as it should. The default size of
shares to trade can only be changed to round numbers
in hundreds. I cannot, for instance, place 50 shares
or 150 shares as the default. I have to invoke the ORDERS screen in order to manually change very trade so that I can place Odd lots. This can be painfully slow. I have not tried the new Java program, so if this has been rectified please let me know.

A useful feature for the Java program would be a button to
cause it to stay on top of other programs. It would
be helpful, considering that most of us use charting
programs we fiddle with constantly, and having the
trading software stay on top of the charts would be
very useful. It's a rather well know feature in the chatting community, so it should not be difficult to implement.

Thanks for your time.

RTS
 
Hi Def,

Would you explain the use of BUY- and SELL+.
I read the doc but I am not sure to get it. How is it different from a limit order.

Thanks.
 
tntneo,

you can enter any size as a default in the java station. Keep in mind, we are still trying to work out the NYSE opening odd lot issue. (please recall the e-mail that was sent to customers).

i like the idea of keeping the software on top and passed it along to programming. That item may already be on their queue. However, in terms of priority I would guess it is on the lower end but expect that it will get done.

rstine,
Buy-/sell+:
Igonore it.
Buy- means to flatten a short position; buy to close. Sell+ means to flatten a long position; sell to close. Institutional accounts must tag these order types. For accounts that IB carries on it's books, the software does the flagging automatically. (thanks for pointing out the ambiguity in the manual.)

 
Is IB still on the letter 'A' for allowing the use of the Java platform? I haven't seen any more emails from them.
 
I logged on thru web, and I still don't see "trader" button. My name starts with S, so I guess they not finished setting up yet.
 
Another Suggestion:

Can we have an option to export the execution log to a text file? Old TWS has this feature and it's very handy for recording trades.
 
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