My typing mistake or IB problem ?

K

kpham_elite

Hi everybody. I hope someone can help me sort out this weird problem that happened to me on Friday, the last option expiration day, which resulted on a loss of thousands dollars for me. This is what happened: I tried to close a 17-contract option short position of IWN November 2006, but somehow IB bought me an additional 683 contracts which resulted in a long position of 700 contracts. Subsequently, I had to close all 700 contracts at a loss at about 8000 dollars.

I contacted IB chat but they said they could not help. I thought I made a typing mistake (and I told them so, how stupid of me!!!) hoping they would break the trade, but they refused to do so. However, I look at the trading confirmations today and saw the first 17 contracts (my original contracts) being bought first and then the additional contracts were bought in fragments moment later. I don't ever recall making typing mistakes of that sort, typing in 700 contacts instead of 17 and then hit Transmit. That means it is possible that I did type in the correct amount but a mistake was made somewhere else. Is is possible that this is an IB server/trading desk (whatever...) mistake that put me in this situation?

It's a painful and perflexing situation. Could anyone help ?

Kevin :mad:
 
Kevin:

I think IB now sets the audit trail to run as part of the default setup. Go to View on the top-level menu bar and you should see two Audit Trail choices. Select the Condensed version.

The audit trail you want is from last Friday. What you will probably see is today's (Monday) audit trail. The date is shown in the time block as "200610xx-time". The time is in 24 hour clock format using the GMT, so you'll have to convert to local time.

I'm unaware of a way to get last Friday's audit trail directly from the TWS. You'll have to look for the file in your C:\jts directory.

Go to the C:\jts directory. Look for a sub-directory with a random set of letters. If you opened TWS today that sub-directory will have todays date.
Open the sub-directory. Look for a file called Fri.audit.xml. Doubleclick on that file. It should open as a window in your browser(at least in Mozilla's Firefox). It looks a little forbidding in browser format but look for field tag = '52' val = . That field contains the time.
Then look for field tag = "38" val = . That field contains the size of the order you placed, cancelled, changed, etc.

Slowly scroll down and look for your order and subsequent changes. Don't mess with the audit trail, just view it

If your audit trail does not show the order as being for 700 contracts call and ask IB to pull up their audit trail. Their server saves the stuff your TWS sent plus lots more.

This way at least you'll know if you made the mistake or IB's servers did. Much as I hate to say it, I suspect you'll find it was at your end.

Jack
 
Quote from Bitstream:

u can views friday's trail by changin' the date on today's one.
More...

How is that done in Win 2K? In Win XP? Is there a special utility?

Jack
 
Quote from JackR:

How is that done in Win 2K? In Win XP? Is there a special utility?

Jack
More...

click view--audit [exp/cond]-- on the file window there's the date--Mon.audit.xmls.html--cancel Mon and type Fri: u are done. u can view every past day of the week this way.

edit; prob is that apparently u cant see last week trails just the current week...i tried now and get error page.
 
I done a typing error many years back. I bought 2,285 contracts in Bonds. My broker called me in seconds, a red flag came up my broker said we did't put our order through...I pay about a 80cens more than I should, but I find I can trust me broker they look after me...anyway if they did fill me I would have made a lot of money that day the market went in my favour would have made a 6 figure some lol.

I bet you it's IB mistake, I used to use them and had fills going through that was not mine. But I remember they didt count, they said it was their fault. it does happen.
 
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