Unfortunately, it will NOT participate in the opening cross. I just got burned again yesterday on this one. I had placed a SMART GTC order to sell an illiquid Nasdaq stock using TWS the day before yesterday. Yesterday, the stock traded 1800 shares at $9.72 per share. My sell order was at $9.67. The stock did not trade the rest of the day. Everyone's a loser on that one. I didn't make my profit. The buyer of the stock got burned. IB didn't make their commission. This is the way it works all the time for me. I trade illiquid stocks, so missing the opening cross when one of my stocks trades at the open means that it might be days before I get my trade or I might have to accept less profit.
You can capture the opening cross by using a MOO or LOO order. These orders capture the opening cross, but they automatically cancel after the open. You could wait until after the opening cross and then submit a standard Limit order if your LOO does not execute at the open. I used to try to play these silly games, but the logistics got to be too painful of doing this every day for all my stocks. There is also more chance of making errors.
I tried to submit a suggestion to IB tech support to create a limit order type which would capture the opening cross and remain activce afterwards if not filled during the opening cross. I had previously asked whether there was a work around to this problem. Both times that I had submitted an inquiry, I got the same support tech who did not understand the question the first time and did not understand the suggestion the second time. It seemed that he thought that it already worked that way. I can assure you that it doesn't. He wouldn't even pass the suggestion on to a developer because he felt there was nothing to suggest.
Now that I've been with IB for a while, I have other suggestions to improve the SMART router. However, it's a moot point as there is no method to submit suggesions which get past the help desk jockeys.
Don't get me wrong, IB is definitely the right broker for me and probably many others. You just have to take the bad with the good. Just call me greedy, but I want to improve the system so that I can make more money than I already do.
