IB's SOES orders will not go Live

aldrums

aldrums

I am having a problem with both the BEST and SOES routes on IB since the full implementation of Supersoes on Monday.
I have entered three separate Market Sell orders, two with BEST and one with SOES, to hit the bid when the stocks were selling fast. In all three instances, the orders did not go green or “live” for 5 seconds or more. They remained blue on the screen, and than finally turned green. All orders were eventually executed on SOES, and two of the orders suffered slippage of .25 and .30 cents per share each before they were executed. Many trades were executed ahead of mine, after I entered my orders and BEFORE my orders ever went live.
I have been using market Soes orders for quite some time now. I never had to wait for an order to go live--sure, I’ve had to wait for an execution but the order would always go live right away, so I knew it was in the Soes queue.
I started using the BEST execution route for market sell orders on Monday because I figured this would be the best choice to get out of stocks quickly, I would either get executed by an ECN or routed to Supersoes at electronic speed. No worrying about getting stuck in Selectnet Preference mode.
After my two experiences with orders not going live with BEST, I decided to switch back to using SOES directly. At first I assumed the problem was with the BEST algorithm getting confused in fast markets and making my order hang. But after my SOES market sell order hung today, I am not sure what is going on.
I called customer support today spoke to Bob. He said the problem is with Nasdaq and to use the BEST_ECN execution route. I can’t accept this solution, because sometimes the ECNs are not around and you have to execute using SOES. If the problem as Bob states were actually with the Nasdaq, it would mean that somehow the Nasdaq is not accepting IB’s SOES market orders into the Supersoes queue. I find this hard to believe.
Let me state again, I never had a problem with my market SOES orders going live before Supersoes...why should I be having this problem now?

Alex
 
Another issue I have is IB does not provide quotes for the SOES Route. I don't understand why. With no quotes you don't have the actual price that you can buy or sell at displayed on the screen for the SOES route. Since all Market Maker quotes are now officially "Soes Quotes" for Nasdaq National Market(NNM) stocks this should be changed.
Also, on the IB Supersoes page http://www.interactivebrokers.com/html/companyInfo/superSoes.html there is a paragraph that says:

"Customers can also directly route their orders to SuperSoes, by selecting 'Nasdaq' or 'SOES' when listing a stock on the Trader Workstation"

If this is true the quotes for the NASDAQ routes for NNM stocks are not accurate, because they are the NBBO, and include ECN quotes. Using the NASDAQ route should SNET prefence ECNs OR Supersoes Market Makers for the displayed quote. If the NASDAQ route only uses Supersoes than there is a good chance you won't get filled for the displayed quote.
If the NASDAQ route only uses Supersoes for execution of NNM stocks than the quotes should only include Market Maker quotes, not ECN quotes. IB should leave the combined display of ECN and Market Maker quotes to the BEST route.

Alex
 
Def,

To the best of your knowledge, do you know if IB will SNET preference ECNs if you send an order via the NASDAQ route for a NNM stock, and there are no market makers at the inside?

Thanks,

Alex
 
I have had the same problem from time to time using Best_ECN. I hit transmit and it stays blue for 5-10 seconds and then goes green. Sometimes my price has come and gone by the time the order goes green. Not good!

This never happens when I send an order directly to ISLD. So, if I want out NOW, I'll sweep my order through ISLD and just get out and not worry about the best bid or ask.

kempo
 
I've noticed the same thing. The last few days especially Best ecn has taken longer and longer to just go live. The line stays blue for several seconds before turning green. I missed some good scalps because of it. That never used to happen before, the order would turn green almost instantly. I hope IB is aware of the problem and are working to correct it.
 
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