Options market making through Interactive Brokers

ajacobson said:
If you just want to be an automated trader - you cannot enter two sided quotes.
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Really? Didn't know that... so you can't put a buy and sell order in at the same time?
What if you already have a long position... and want to sell it say 20 cents higher... but also would like to buy more at bid... that's not allowed? Neither auto nor manually?
 
That's not marketing making. You are not entering quotes. Two limit orders. If I were you I would spend a few minutes on google and look at three things. Option Market Making - Options Professional Customer Designation and the really cool one - Options Bust and allowable time frames.
Most brokerage houses would kick out the orders you describe or have you enter it as one triggers other.
 
ajacobson said:
That's not marketing making. You are not entering quotes. Two limit orders. If I were you I would spend a few minutes on google and look at three things. Option Market Making - Options Professional Customer Designation and the really cool one - Options Bust and allowable time frames.
Most brokerage houses would kick out the orders you describe or have you enter it as one triggers other.
More...

I was an options market maker, so no need to google... ;)

If I am entering 2-sided orders... whether best bid and offer or behind... I'm effectively making a market. Technically it's not the same, but in effect it is. A quote is nothing more than automatically adjusted bids and offers...


I have no issues whatsoever putting in multiple orders through IB, but I'm not looking to do this anyway... I'm merely pointing out to OP that it's probably not a smart thing to do 'mass quoting' or any large number of auto-orders through IB.
 
Like JackRab said. Dunno if you use the same jargon but I'm making a distinction between join and attack orders. Say market is now "theoretically" at 100, with best bid at 99 and best ask at 101. Then if I enter a limit buy order at 101, I'm doing an attack. To increase my chances of getting a fill, I might buy @ 102. If I enter a *sell* order at 101 or 102, I'm doing a join.

Now suppose there's no such thing as best bid or best ask, only the theoretical value computed by me. Then I'm entering a sell order at 101 and a buy order at 99. That's market making, do-able through IB too and that's what I intend to do.
 
Seems like each one of us talks slightly different languages. This may be related to the extreme isolation of the success in this branch. Anything you say out loud can and will be used against you, so those who make it are discreet with regard to how, what and why they do. Which leads to a situation similar to national languages in a relatively small area (like English, Gaelic, Scottish).

I don't post or read the posts here often so I've very little idea who you are. Some of you are obvious harshed veterans, others are naive newbies. Is there a place here where we could read an introduction about each of us? If not, perhaps you could make a short assessment here?
 
About me: I'm =~ 40 years old, not a newbie and neither a senior. Senior developer, trader or what else. I laugh in the face of 22 years old "senior developers" and tell them "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." (Mark Twain). Most of them (everyone of them so far) doesn't understand what I'm talking about, which is weird since I did when I was their age and albeit it doubled since, nothing changed in my perception. A senior has seen, gone through, survived and will survive things that your teenage mind can't even imagine. So if the senior says don't rush so much over that trench, better listen to the old guy and stick your head under. At least before the attack.
 
Other facts about me: I'm an EE. Electrical engineer and eastern European. What you need to know about EEs is that they're simultaneously the smartest and stupidest people in the same person. The only guys who outdo us are true Russians. To understand what I'm saying look for "first guys to send a probe on Venus" and "Russian drunken videos". Actually no, just look for "first guys to send a probe on Venus" :D
 
We're chronically undercapitalized and overworked, under either capitalist, communist or tsarist (aristocratic) regime.

Think of Tetris, Z-80 or The Radio. We invented all those things but our managers, like yours, don't care, know or give a fuck whatsoever. We've got a saying we ask our managers: "do you know what's the difference between the ignorance and apathy?". Those who respond "I don't know and I don't care" are on for the highest places in the hierarchy.
 
Think of me as an EE who's just figured there's no point of moving on the X-Y axis since all it's already colonized, and thought of Z. OK, Z is still occupied, I know and have seen that before you since I'm currently having a quite good grasp of T. Do you?
 
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