Yet more tech. issues with IB today :(

[ValeryN]

Hopefully their scheduled Saturday update will help.

For me - IBs API didn't return any new positions taken today in positions snapshots from open till close. That's some serious problem for automated trading and it is getting into a dangerous territory of broker bugs. Good I had coded a failsafe for this possibility, it was a close call though..

Im happy with IB otherwise. But there isn't much of an alternative for Canadian without getting into US LLC. Hopefully Alpaca happens, eventually.

Val

 

[d08]

Hopefully their scheduled Saturday update will help.

For me - IBs API didn't return any new positions taken today in positions snapshots from open till close. That's some serious problem for automated trading and it is getting into a dangerous territory of broker bugs. Good I had coded a failsafe for this possibility, it was a close call though..

Im happy with IB otherwise. But there isn't much of an alternative for Canadian without getting into US LLC. Hopefully Alpaca happens, eventually.

Val

I've gotten positions fine but historical data is broken and disconnections happened at seemingly random - I use sleep in code for minutes and afterwards when making a request for historical data I get error code 504 (not connected). Never had this happen but once before, now it's daily.

 

[TimtheEnchanter]

Thanks for the response. They may cater to those types of traders, but they sure don't coddle them or try hard to acquire them. I first tried moving to IB years ago so I could put the purchase of a house on margin. They treated me indifferently and I instead got offered an asset backed lending program from Schwab. I didn't use it but at least Schwab tried. Later when I was consolidating other brokerage accounts and comparing offers, they didn't bother to make an offer even though I solicited for one. I assume customer acquisition isn't part of their model and they keep costs low that way, but I still can't gauge what their platform will cost me. I don't want to open a small test account, worsen my margin position even more on Schwab, just to get reamed with data charges and weird fees when I decide its not up to snuff.

I suppose they get the "whales" by the word of mouth. Indeed if you take a lot of margin loans on large money, IB is a no-brainer. Their website is STUPID but eventually, you figure it out or some other trader shows you. If you tried to put a purchase of a house on margin IB has NO interest in you, they want you to TRADE up a storm and use margin, they are not realtors. Also, they are not for a serious investors either. They want traders =, bigger the better.