Trading Technologies cancelled my order--what would Rick Lane say?

[Spectre2007]

Most of these "issues" arise from a lack of understanding of the agreement signed with the broker and of risk itself.

You are accepting all risk that goes with this game. If you don't like it, don't play.

surf

There's more to owning/running a business than the paperwork associated with it. Having pride in what you created for your customers/clients. It would be hard to look the other way, if my business caused a unwanted result for a client, irrespective of what was signed. Its more than about money. How can anyone sling 100 lots or more if confidence is lacking. The last thing you need to think of is whether the tools your using will work properly during critical moments while focusing on your methodology.

 

[marketsurfer]

There's more to owning/running a business than the paperwork associated with it. Having pride in what you created for your customers/clients. It would be hard to look the other way, if my business caused a unwanted result for a client, irrespective of what was signed. Its more than about money. How can anyone sling 100 lots or more if confidence is lacking. The last thing you need to think of is whether the tools your using will work properly during critical moments while focusing on your methodology.

You have a good point. but at the same time, customers need to understand that they are taking RISK of all types when investing/trading in the markets-- its just not market risk.

surf

 

[Spectre2007]

You have a good point. but at the same time, customers need to understand that they are taking RISK of all types when investing/trading in the markets-- its just not market risk.

surf

Yeah, I fully agree. Just sucks he missed out on profiting from his plan. TT is excellent tech, just unfortunate it happened. Hopefully both parties can come to a resolution between themselves.

 

[RosyScenario]

Trading Technologies cancelled my order—what would @Rick_TT Rick Lane say?

On the late afternoon of Friday, May 5, 2017, during market hours, I entered a GTC order to sell 30 June ES at 2403.25 and a GTC order to buy 30 June ES at 2394.25, a nine-point play. I anticipated a Sunday night opening pop up due to the French election results then a quick reversal and I wanted my orders to be near the front of the queue. The TT platform indicated that both orders were active and working on the exchange as usual when submitted on Friday. And both orders were still active one second prior to the Sunday, May 7, 2017, evening open at 6 p.m. ET. However, at precisely 6 p.m ET the sell order was erroneously cancelled by the Trading Technologies platform as the market opened through my price.

My order was not filled.

I immediately contacted Trading Technologies in Incident INC0167432 and they immediately responded then acknowledged the platform error. I then asked that I be filled at my price. However, there was no reply as I watched the market continue to move lower which necessitated the cancellation of my offsetting buy order. Soon thereafter the market traded through my offsetting buy order price.

I asked Trading Technologies to reimburse me for the loss that I suffered for those nine ES points. Here is their response:
---

Your ticket submitted last night to our Support desk, as well as your request below was forwarded on to me in our Customer Success department. I've spoken with Support and Engineering to gain some clarity on the issue.

While your OCO SSE order specified GTC orders to be submitted, the GTC order does not reside at the exchange server until the SSE algo is running. Due to an error Sunday night, your algo failed to start up properly and thus, the order was not submitted to the exchange. This does not mean that the order was pulled but rather that the algo driving it was cancelled at the open . Our Engineering team is in the process of applying a permanent fix for this so that this issue does not reoccur, and we expect that resolution in short order.

We sincerely regret the difficulty caused by this matter. And while I realize this is merely an explanation and not a resolution, we certainly do not have the authority to take orders or place orders on our customers' behalf, and it is not our practice to reimburse customers in such situations.

This matter has been referred to our Management team for review, and we will update you on the progress of our engineering work to fortify our processes. Should you wish to discuss this further, I am available to you (my contact info below).
---

I need to disagree with some of that reply:

1.
"While your OCO SSE order specified GTC orders to be submitted, the GTC order does not reside at the exchange server until the SSE algo is running."

I disagree. This was a GTC limit order that was or should have been resting at the exchange since Friday afternoon. And all indications on the TT platform demonstrated that it was. Just because there was also an OCO stop order does not change the fact that the limit order was or should have been at the exchange since Friday. It should never have been pulled from the exchange as it would lose its priority in the queue.

Here TT is apparently saying that the GTC sell order that was submitted on Friday during market hours was never submitted to the exchange. My understanding, according to all indications on the TT platform is that it was, indeed, submitted to the exchange on Friday. How could it not have been? And if it was not then that was an additional error. Or, more than likely, the CS representative is just wrong and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of a GTC limit order sent to the exchange.

And if all that weren't enough, the TT Audit Trail documents the exchange order ID number.

2.
"This does not mean that the order was pulled but rather that the algo driving it was cancelled at the open."

Again I disagree. This was a limit order that was or should have been resting at the exchange since Friday. This order was cancelled by TT.

3.
Another disagreement I have is that TT would not fill my order at my price when I requested it shortly after the open when the market was trading only a short distance away from my price. They now say:

"… we certainly do not have the authority to take orders or place orders on our customers' behalf."

I have to call them out on this: if they have the "authority" to cancel my order they certainly have the authority to put it back.

4.
"… it is not our practice to reimburse customers in such situations."

In certain situations, it should be. Even much-maligned Interactive Brokers routinely reimburses clients for losses incurred as a result of issues with their notoriously buggy TWS platform. A quick search reveals this one:

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/52k-gone-from-my-ib-account-what-next-sue-ib.107347/page-16

where in post #157 IB states, "IB will indeed compensate the client for loss." And this was in spite of the fact that the client may have contributed to the errant order placement issue by double clicking; and there was also the additional issue of that client's delayed reporting (playing the market).

But the point was that there was a bug in the TWS platform and the client was fully compensated.

Interactive Brokers did the right thing.

And in another thread here:

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/ib-made-an-error-will-they-fix-it.73400/page-7

another Interactive Brokers client receives compensation for another IB software problem. That client concluded in post #71, "Besides, this thread is a success for IB. It was a straight up case where fault was evident. They did the right thing."

And there are many additional compensation examples from IB and others.

Trading Technologies touts their platform as having "superior performance" and being "trusted by professional traders worldwide." And they say, "Today, we set the standard for professional trading platforms." I say, if you are going to hold yourself out there like that you need to maintain some level of real-time credibility.

The CS reply is inaccurate and insufficient. My limit order was placed and resting at the exchange since Friday and that order was cancelled by TT a fraction of a second prior to it being filled. I'd like this matter escalated to Rick Lane, CEO, and to be fairly compensated and made whole because it's the right thing to do.

TT says, "We make the tools that the world’s premier traders trust to maintain their edge. Because they need speed, reliability and customization. And we deliver." I pay a premium for this standard-setting platform and I await my delivery.

This was an interesting case. We'd like all the details, but if you can't maybe you could just let us know if it was satisfactorily resolved.

 

[J.P.]

This was an interesting case. We'd like all the details, but if you can't maybe you could just let us know if it was satisfactorily resolved.

I am sorry to say this matter was not resolved satisfactorily.

I have been trading futures using a variety of platforms since they were invented. And I've suffered my share of platform glitches. Various firms handled them differently. Some a lot better than others. When I had to eat those losses I did so without complaining on a public site. However, this one was very different. This Trading Technologies program flaw was so egregious as to warrant full frontal exposure on Elite Trader to inform and benefit this fine trading community.

I did not make this trade, TT did. My orders were confirmed resting at the exchange for days. And they were pulled from the exchange without authorization from me by TT resulting in a $13,500 loss. And TT refused to make it right only because they don't have to.

It's a matter of record at TT that there were a number of other TT platform trading issues that I reported prior to this one that also cost me. On every one TT stated they fixed the issue even though that sometimes proved not to be the case repeatedly. On every one, even the ones that they claimed were fixed but were not, I just ate the losses and moved on.

But I have been trading for decades and I have never had any other platform reach into my resting orders at the exchange and pull them. And there was nothing that I could have done to avoid this. Sure I'm angry. I'm angry about the uninformed response from customer service. I'm angry about the TT policy to not make things right even in extreme cases. I'm angry that I can't trust that the orders I place on the exchange will stay there. And I'm angry with myself for believing, even for a moment, the TT site that says: "We make the tools that the world’s premier traders trust to maintain their edge. Because they need speed, reliability and customization. And we deliver."

And now you know.

 

[RosyScenario]

I am sorry to say this matter was not resolved satisfactorily.

I have been trading futures using a variety of platforms since they were invented. And I've suffered my share of platform glitches. Various firms handled them differently. Some a lot better than others. When I had to eat those losses I did so without complaining on a public site. However, this one was very different. This Trading Technologies program flaw was so egregious as to warrant full frontal exposure on Elite Trader to inform and benefit this fine trading community.

I did not make this trade, TT did. My orders were confirmed resting at the exchange for days. And they were pulled from the exchange without authorization from me by TT resulting in a $13,500 loss. And TT refused to make it right only because they don't have to.

It's a matter of record at TT that there were a number of other TT platform trading issues that I reported prior to this one that also cost me. On every one TT stated they fixed the issue even though that sometimes proved not to be the case repeatedly. On every one, even the ones that they claimed were fixed but were not, I just ate the losses and moved on.

But I have been trading for decades and I have never had any other platform reach into my resting orders at the exchange and pull them. And there was nothing that I could have done to avoid this. Sure I'm angry. I'm angry about the uninformed response from customer service. I'm angry about the TT policy to not make things right even in extreme cases. I'm angry that I can't trust that the orders I place on the exchange will stay there. And I'm angry with myself for believing, even for a moment, the TT site that says: "We make the tools that the world’s premier traders trust to maintain their edge. Because they need speed, reliability and customization. And we deliver."

And now you know.

Wow. What a shame! I feel for you. Thank you very much for posting all that!

 

[i960]

I did not make this trade, TT did. My orders were confirmed resting at the exchange for days. And they were pulled from the exchange without authorization from me by TT resulting in a $13,500 loss. And TT refused to make it right only because they don't have to.

I would expect some kind of monetary compensation (platform fees waived for a year) here given that the platform did indeed remove orders that were already submitted on a trade that was specifically setup for this situation.

At a minimum I'd be pissed off.

 

[bladerunner2049]

Don't let this issue effect your trading, disturbing the Zen, it could spiral into much more monetary cost.

 

[J.P.]

Wow. What a shame!

Thanks. And from where I sit it's not just a shame, it's shockingly reprehensible.

 

[J.P.]

I would expect some kind of monetary compensation (platform fees waived for a year) here given that the platform did indeed remove orders that were already submitted on a trade that was specifically setup for this situation.

At a minimum I'd be pissed off.

Of course. But Trading Technologies simply prefers that I pay for their trade.