Port:
You believe there is a 5 second delay in IB's quotes. Here is a way you should be able to see that there is no delay.
Tomorrow at 8:30 AM EDT (12:30 GMT) the Department of Commerce will release some Personal Consumption figures. The core PCE Inflation\Deflation number often moves the market. Since you are an IB customer you should have access to futures quotes. Do this:
1) In TWS add a line for the S&P 500. Symbol ES, Futures, Sep, 2008.
2) Open a real time chart with a time period of 1 minute, 5 second bar, and volume.
3) Now Open Book Trader - if you don't use it - Right click on the ES symbol. In the popup window scroll down to Tools. Select Book Trader.
4) You'll see a DOM ladder. Look at the top of the price and size columns and you'll see a total for Bid Size and a total for Ask Size.
5) At about 8:29 you'll note that the total begins to diminish. Within about 10 seconds before 8:30 the totals will be in the low hundreds.
6) The price will be oscillating up and down within a point or so.
7) Keep the mouse out of the Book Trader so that it will auto center.
8) At 8:30.0000001 there should a violent move in one direction with an increase in total volume.
Put you computer time somewhere you can see it easily.
The US Government releases the info at exactly 8:30:00. You'll see the market react at 8:30:0000001. You will see the IB ES data reacts exactly in step with the government release. The spike will occur at 8:30. Think of it as a time sync.
If what you stated at the start of this thread is correct your computer clock should indicate about 8:30:05 when the spike occurs. This shows that it is 5 seconds fast. The government's release time is precise and the market reaction almost instantaneous. The IB chart will show the reaction but since you are looking at a 5 second bar there will be a charting delay. But be careful. IB does not send time with its real-time quotes so IB's charting program uses your local computer clock to generate the chart time base. If you have a charting program capable of producing a tick chart you should see the same thing, instantaneous real-time data with an erronous time shown. Be aware that IB's backfill data does have time included so don't get confused if you pull up time and sales data or backfill a chart.
Since tomorrow (this Friday) is the Friday before Labor Day weekend, volume may be down, and if the PCE numbers are close to the forecast numbers, the move may not be too dramatic but will probably be good enough to demo that IB is not delaying the data.
Jack
