stops not hidden at IB?

Quote from otayah:

Forex has exponentially more volume than even SPY.

However, I thought jumping in with $100k in the highly liquid stocks I'm trading wouldn't gain attention. It makes up only a small fraction of the volume in the 5-minute candles I look at. Perhaps 5-10% at most.

Hopefully some solution will work. After I retest live with only 200 shares, the next things I try will either be entering 3x $30k, or whatever number of orders are necessary at 200-300 shares each to reach ~$100k.

Although, now I'm starting to wonder about something else. I trade short-term mean reversion after my algorithm sets off an alarm saying price extended too far in one direction. Maybe it always works in simulation because the original reason price extended was because of a bot squeezing another retailer who entered too large of an order. That would be very sad, as it would basically make my system untenable, since I would just be the next reason price extended too far.
yeah, but the question was are they hidden or not. My guess (based on anecdotal experience) is they are hidden and when the trigger gets hit become market.
 
IB won't be selling your orders or hitting your stops. It's just not in their interest.

What was suggested on the first page does seem reasonable but would also give you a really nice argument for scaling into your position. Surely 50k to start with then scaling in to take advantage of any bot activity giving a stop outside of their activity while you're at it.

Worth trying and could be very nice.
 
All good thoughts, thanks. Hopefully some combination of iceberg and scaling in will work.

Do odd lots set off bots? I like the TWS chart trader's option to buy in preset $ amounts instead of only preset share amounts. But of course that ends up with a strange-looking order (1261 shares, for example). I don't see a way to set the $ amount and then round to the nearest 100 shares--is there?
 
Quote from kiwi_trader:

IB won't be selling your orders or hitting your stops. It's just not in their interest.

What was suggested on the first page does seem reasonable but would also give you a really nice argument for scaling into your position. Surely 50k to start with then scaling in to take advantage of any bot activity giving a stop outside of their activity while you're at it.

Worth trying and could be very nice.
they have a guy who just sts there in the corner with a computer. He gets paid $7.20 per hour plus 50% of the profits from any stop he can hit. How does he make a profit? Well, they haven't figured that out yet. It requires hitting your stop at a low price and reselling it at a higher price. Everytime they get a good stop hunter, he quits and goes into business for himself as a scalper.

Put in a big sell stop below the market and scalp it on the way down and cancel it just before it gets hit.
 
Quote from kiwi_trader:

IB won't be selling your orders or hitting your stops. It's just not in their interest.

What was suggested on the first page does seem reasonable but would also give you a really nice argument for scaling into your position. Surely 50k to start with then scaling in to take advantage of any bot activity giving a stop outside of their activity while you're at it.

Worth trying and could be very nice.

A company as big as IB wouldn't take the chance of selling stop orders, espcially bcuz it is illegal. They're not that stupid nor so hungry for profits, they are doing very well going by the book.

Those bots are designed to assume how the other side is placing orders and where. Hell, even a caveman could do it....
 
Quote from otayah:

Forex has exponentially more volume than even SPY.

However, I thought jumping in with $100k in the highly liquid stocks I'm trading wouldn't gain attention. It makes up only a small fraction of the volume in the 5-minute candles I look at. Perhaps 5-10% at most.

Hopefully some solution will work. After I retest live with only 200 shares, the next things I try will either be entering 3x $30k, or whatever number of orders are necessary at 200-300 shares each to reach ~$100k.

Although, now I'm starting to wonder about something else. I trade short-term mean reversion after my algorithm sets off an alarm saying price extended too far in one direction. Maybe it always works in simulation because the original reason price extended was because of a bot squeezing another retailer who entered too large of an order. That would be very sad, as it would basically make my system untenable, since I would just be the next reason price extended too far.
that was my thinking,we are all watching the same movie,your stop might be 1 of hundreds in a price area,there's determined with nearly the same data as yours,run the stops and turn is the way the mrkt behaves almost always,sounds like your stops are in a noisy area,based on how you said it was so often
 
It might be a week or two, but I will periodically report back to this thread after I try different solutions.

If anyone has further thoughts in the meantime, I welcome them. Especially if you have experienced this firsthand when trying to scale up strategies that were previously working.
 
Quote from oldtime:

the obvious solution is never enter a stop unless you know for certain it is hidden

Just to make it 100% clear. IB doesn't sell your stops (I never heard of any reputable firm that did this) nor shows or advertises them to others.

It seems to me that you may be using odd lots in your strategy which would impact your fills. In addition, the bots/HFT's don't see your orders on a paper trader which is probably your bigger issue as they can't jump in front of you in a paper account. Strategies these days are much more difficult to backtest accurately when applying to the real world as a result.
 
Quote from otayah:

All good thoughts, thanks. Hopefully some combination of iceberg and scaling in will work.

Do odd lots set off bots? I like the TWS chart trader's option to buy in preset $ amounts instead of only preset share amounts. But of course that ends up with a strange-looking order (1261 shares, for example). I don't see a way to set the $ amount and then round to the nearest 100 shares--is there?

Just my guess but I would think that sitting on the bid with an iceberg would be better than taking from the ask. If you're using IB, I'd also stick with direct routing instead of smart routing so your order isn't broadcast unnecessarily (for example, DirectEdge still supports flash orders I think). I wouldn't put it above some venues to be leaking more order information than they should.
 
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