Use InteractiveBrokers and Stop-Loss? BEWARE!

NoDoji · Sep 9, 2010

Quote from GatlingGun:

I was already $2000 *positive* in a short position this morning before the employment numbers came out... I put in a stop and reverse above the ask at 8:29:45 ET using a buy stop-loss order... I saw the little clock that IB puts next to the order, but didn't have time to investigate and correct before I lost over $6000* on the rocket ride through my short position.

Very sorry to hear about that. You'd think for sure a pop-up would come up, considering they have pop up messages for all kinds of other stuff.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but when you place a stop order at the last minute before a market-moving event (econ numbers, fed speech, FOMC minutes, etc.), you are last in line behind all the people who had stops in place earlier. Just before the news the liquidity dries up and once the market reacts to the news there can be an instant price gap as the winning side is in no hurry to let the losing side out of their positions for cheap. If the price gap is against your position, your stop and everyone else's stops are triggered and become market orders that are filled in the order they were entered, causing price to run even further. This can become a catch-me-if-you-can scenario and you can end up with some massive slippage despite the fact that you had a stop in place at a specific price. I saw ES gap over 8 pts one morning on news and then keep going. A stop is not much help when that happens. Something thinner like CL can be much worse.

GatlingGun · Sep 9, 2010

Quote from NoDoji:

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but when you place a stop order at the last minute before a market-moving event (econ numbers, fed speech, FOMC minutes, etc.), you are last in line behind all the people who had stops in place earlier. Just before the news the liquidity dries up and once the market reacts to the news there can be an instant price gap as the winning side is in no hurry to let the losing side out of their positions for cheap. If the price gap is against your position, your stop and everyone else's stops are triggered and become market orders that are filled in the order they were entered, causing price to run even further. This can become a catch-me-if-you-can scenario and you can end up with some massive slippage despite the fact that you had a stop in place at a specific price. I saw ES gap over 8 pts one morning on news and then keep going. A stop is not much help when that happens. Something thinner like CL can be much worse.

I am always impressed with your comments NoDoji, thank you again for more constructive feedback.

For a moment, I didn't realize the FIFO delay would work against me, but it certainly would if I rely on the same stop-loss to reverse the position. As you point out, the FIFO dynamic means it's much better to get out of the short completely before the announcement and then take appropriate action.

pcp198 · Sep 9, 2010

ouch , if I took a 6K loss, i'd be out of the game right now. At the very least, ask your broker to credit your account with some free trades. Last year I had just began using the Etrade Pro platform and I couldnt figure out why I couldn't close out my trade (my fault), and I took a pretty large loss. they agreed to cover part of it, (mainly because the rep took way to long to close out the trade).

GatlingGun · Sep 9, 2010

Quote from pcp198:

ouch , if I took a 6K loss, i'd be out of the game right now. At the very least, ask your broker to credit your account with some free trades. Last year I had just began using the Etrade Pro platform and I couldnt figure out why I couldn't close out my trade (my fault), and I took a pretty large loss. they agreed to cover part of it, (mainly because the rep took way to long to close out the trade).

Fair point about the trades... I'll ask.

BCE · Sep 10, 2010

Sorry for your loss. We've all had our share. Trading is hard enough and then to mix in the software issues or data feed issues, etc. Makes it hard sometimes, especially when you take big hits like that. But thanks for sharing all this as it will invariably help other traders from a similar problem. Keep your chin up. You'll be okay. I know you can trade. Onward and upward. BTW those were very useful comments, NoDoji. Thanks.

failed_trad3r · Sep 10, 2010

Quote from pcp198:

ouch , if I took a 6K loss, i'd be out of the game right now. At the very least, ask your broker to credit your account with some free trades. Last year I had just began using the Etrade Pro platform and I couldnt figure out why I couldn't close out my trade (my fault), and I took a pretty large loss. they agreed to cover part of it, (mainly because the rep took way to long to close out the trade).

you might be undercaptalised

pcp198 · Sep 10, 2010

Quote from failed_trad3r:

you might be undercaptalised

When I started trading ES , I decided $2000 would be my max risk. In my mind, if I lost that money, that would be my indication that I failed as a trader.

Its been over 3 months since I opened my futures account and despite some really dumb mistakes I've made, I'm still trading.

Mr_RC · Sep 12, 2010

Sorry to hear that - I fight with that terrible interface too. I started marking all orders as "outside RTH" - so order is order no matter what. If you are quick and request a trade cancellation right away (in case it may happen again) you could be lucky. But the condition for such a request is for the trade to be "clearly erroneous" - which means:

"Generally interpreted as the execution of an order at a price substantially away from the prevailing market price"

So the question would be what the allowed deviation from "Generally" is - but worth a try.

Source: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=customerService&p1=bust&ib_entity=uk

syswizard · Sep 12, 2010

Quote from intradaybill:

I agree about the popup with the option no to show again in the future. That is not a big deal. True, these IB people area bit slow.

That is exactly right. All of this outsourcing of software work has produced mediocre products-at-best. That is what is being experienced here. The GUI is important...in fact, it's VITAL towards building great software.
Gatling is correct in his assertion this could have been done much better.

joe4422 · Sep 13, 2010

Quote from GatlingGun:

Perhaps you misunderstood... I said add a warning popup after hours... it could even be a popup that let's you make it a one-time warning... point-being if you trade futures, there is little value in assuming RTH for order-entry... they trade almost 24 hours.

Speaking as someone who has coded much of his life, and served in the capacity of product manager at a multi-million dollar software shop; it's a problem if people are losing real money daily, and that is exactly what their supervisor said on a recorded line.

I agree with the other posters. For those who take the time to learn the tool, we don't need nor do we want little pop up windows popping around all the time.