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Interactive Brokers - experiences and opinions

  • #521
  • Jul 15, 2014 10:01pm Jul 15, 2014 10:01pm
Quoting KADC
{quote} Stock data is free -- I don't even know how you could unsubscribe to it, but anyway, the problem isn't a data spike, it is a 2:1 stock split (i.e. twice the shares worth half the price). Standard practice is to adjust all historical data to reflect the new price but Interactive Brokers have failed to do so in this one case while other stocks (such as the more recent 7:1 Apple split or the much older CCT split from last year) have had their historical prices updated correctly. On the other hand, Google is hardly an unknown stock and certainly...
First of all, this is what I get when I tried to open a chart for Google in TWS (See below). So no stock data for me since I don't subscribe. Nothing is ever free with IB. And technically that is still a bad data spike that shouldn't have happened if IB adjusted the historical price database correctly for the stock split and because they didn't because of that painstaking process like I described to you. Like I told you it's not just a setting file that stores the chart data, it's actually a huge DBA file with all the historical prices that feed into the charting software which is MultiCharts in TWS.

Second, for the trend line, yup they do get saved even when you close the entire TWS without saving the chart. When you re-open TWS and log in and you open a brand new chart of that same security, the chart opens with that drawn trend line still there. But then again, I don't know if this applies to stock at least for Forex pairs it does retain the trend lines.
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Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #522
  • Jul 15, 2014 11:19pm Jul 15, 2014 11:19pm
Quoting Forexia
{quote}...Second, for the trend line, yup they do get saved even when you close the entire TWS without saving the chart. When you re-open TWS and log in and you open a brand new chart of that same security, the chart opens with that drawn trend line still there. But then again, I don't know if this applies to stock at least for Forex pairs it does retain the trend lines. {image}
Excellent. I'll give the new version a chance then, though I'll wait until I have time to mess around with backing everything up in case I need to revert back to the old version.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #523
  • Jul 16, 2014 12:58am Jul 16, 2014 12:58am
Quoting KADC
{quote} Excellent. I'll give the new version a chance then, though I'll wait until I have time to mess around with backing everything up in case I need to revert back to the old version.
Well I didn't download any TWS new version since they introduced MultiCharts but yeah MultiCharts is an improvement over their previous ridiculously crappy charting software if you can call that charting, more like price plotting software. LOL
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #524
  • Jul 21, 2014 2:09am Jul 21, 2014 2:09am
For anyone confused about the title of this thread being different than what they subscribed to, Twee (Forex Factory moderator) has merged all the Interactive Brokers threads since there were so many of them and most had gone dormant.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #525
  • Jul 22, 2014 8:39pm Jul 22, 2014 8:39pm
Quoting KADC
For anyone confused about the title of this thread being different than what they subscribed to, Twee (Forex Factory moderator) has merged all the Interactive Brokers threads since there were so many of them and most had gone dormant.
Nice.
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #526
  • Edited 3:38am Jul 23, 2014 3:20am | Edited 3:38am
This is new: Though I haven't carried a balance since last Thursday, my accrued interest increased by three times more than it had for the combined total of the entire previous week. Even if they delayed posting my trading was very light and certainly nothing to warrant this sudden increase. My cash balance over the weekend was also short despite gains in my base currency (CAD) versus USD which is the only non-trivial currency I'm holding, and the USD balance is negative which should have created a base currency gain. Note that the negative USD holdings is relatively constant so could not possibly represent the sudden increase in accrued interest.

Addendum: Another new one -- a stop executed well past the stop price but it wasn't price surge. Recently I've seen an increase in near-stop executions but I've never had this happen before.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #527
  • Jul 23, 2014 3:36am Jul 23, 2014 3:36am
Quoting KADC
This is new: Though I haven't carried a balance since last Thursday, my accrued interest increased by three times more than it had for the combined total of the entire previous week. Even if they delayed posting my trading was very light and certainly nothing to warrant this sudden increase. My cash balance over the weekend was also short despite gains in my base currency (CAD) versus USD which is the only non-trivial currency I'm holding, and the USD balance is negative which should have created a base currency gain. Note that the negative USD...
Interactive Brokers is in my opinion a very good broker, but it's quite complicated, because there are so much things.
Just some infos about accrued interest: Know that if you are short some stocks, your balance increases the amount of your shorts, but this does NOT count as cash when calculating the interest on your account. This is because you have to borrow the shares you are short, and the cash is used as collateral for the borrowing. So, a positive balance appears everywhere on your account/reports, but you still pay interest, which may be confusing when you don't know it.

IB can enable additional reporting features on your account: When you go to account management > Activity > Statements, you can customize your statements on the bottom of the page. If you don't see a section called "Optional Section" where you can select "interest details", ask for it to the support. With this, you can see all the details of the accrued interest, which helps a lot to understand what is really happening on your account.

EDIT: And just know that wedneday usually means 3 times accrued interest because the week end days are counted (friday, saturday, sunday)
  • #528
  • Edited 11:46pm Aug 14, 2014 11:17pm | Edited 11:46pm
Today Interactive Brokers put through a 50 pip spike across all Aussie pairs. Okay, an anomaly, right? At midnight USD/JPY spiked down to 0.00, GBP.USD spiked down to 0.875, AUD.USD spiked up to 1.025, and NZD.USD spiked up to 1.625. EUR.USD wasn't affected to this wasn't a universal spike against USD. I wonder if they'd have honoured executions in our favour for those orders because I know they're quick to point you towards the terms and conditions when a nonsensical spike takes out a stop.

Also, they have still yet to fix the charting problem with Google stock which still appears as if the price dropped $600 even though the split/dividend indicator correctly shows the stock split.

Addendum: They executed my Aussie trade in two parts, some before midnight and some after, and subsequently charged me commission twice. Granted the order was a nonstandard lot in order to include residual Aussie that had accumulated in my account in order to zero out my position, but I've never been charged twice for partial orders before when the execute in the same day. I'm not going to spend a half hour with support to argue about $2.00 when it would have cost me that much to initiate a "close currency balance" anyway, but these things do add up over time.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #529
  • Edited Aug 15, 2014 12:24am Aug 14, 2014 11:48pm | Edited Aug 15, 2014 12:24am
Quoting Mevo
{quote} Interactive Brokers is in my opinion a very good broker, but it's quite complicated, because there are so much things. Just some infos about accrued interest: Know that if you are short some stocks, your balance increases the amount of your shorts, but this does NOT count as cash when calculating the interest on your account. This is because you have to borrow the shares you are short, and the cash is used as collateral for the borrowing. So, a positive balance appears everywhere on your account/reports, but you still pay interest, which...
I have generated custom reports enabling all options, but I've still never tracked down the cause and my auditor friend wanted nothing to do with reports that use variable end-of-day, none of which ever coincide with any standard closing time.

That's curious about Wednesdays because I normally see the weekend accrued interest added to my account on Monday. Now "normally" needs to be taken with a grain of salt because, per the discussion, there have been unexplained balance discrepancies including that huge accrued interest charge several weeks ago despite my not carrying a balance that could generate that amount in an entire week, never mind it being simply a weekend accumulation.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #530
  • Aug 15, 2014 8:23am Aug 15, 2014 8:23am
hiii guys...have you been using Vector Securites before.
really looking forward using this broker immediately, great and trusted broker.
fast support & execution too, great spread.
my trading account :969417

Rgds,
Surya Citra
  • #531
  • Aug 15, 2014 8:32am Aug 15, 2014 8:32am
Quoting gembel
hiii guys...have you been using Vector Securites before. really looking forward using this broker immediately, great and trusted broker. fast support & execution too, great spread. my trading account :969417 Rgds, Surya Citra
I will never understand why such companies hire people doing such crappy advertisment...
The account number thing made me laugh, thanks
  • #532
  • Aug 20, 2014 10:35am Aug 20, 2014 10:35am
Quoting Mevo
{quote} I will never understand why such companies hire people doing such crappy advertisment... The account number thing made me laugh, thanks
Maybe we're supposed to believe it's legitimate because it was so unprofessional and unconvincing.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #533
  • Aug 20, 2014 10:38am Aug 20, 2014 10:38am
I guess Interactive Brokers is fishing for extra cash today -- I just got stopped out of two trades a full .00010 away from the actual price. I realize it's in the terms of use that they can do that, but legal isn't the same as okay.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #534
  • Aug 29, 2014 4:19pm Aug 29, 2014 4:19pm
This is the absolute limit! My cash balance ended the day $100 short! It ranged between $21 and $13 short most of the day (funny how these "errors" are never in our favour) but $100 is taking this "borrowing" much too far. I even recalculated from yesterday morning when I only had one trade using yesterday and today day-end profit/loss/commission amounts and it's $100 (give or take $3 or $4 dollars for base currency fluctuations).

If they are taking extra liberties because the North American markets will be closed on Monday that money had better be back in my account by Tuesday.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #535
  • Edited 4:42pm Aug 29, 2014 4:28pm | Edited 4:42pm
Quoting KADC
This is the absolute limit! My cash balance ended the day $100 short! It ranged between $21 and $13 short most of the day (funny how these "errors" are never in our favour) but $100 is taking this "borrowing" much too far. I even recalculated from yesterday morning when I only had one trade using yesterday and today day-end profit/loss/commission amounts and it's $100 (give or take $3 or $4 dollars for base currency fluctuations). If they are taking extra liberties because the North American markets will be closed on Monday that money had better...
Hi KADC,

I'd be more interested if you find something you don't like. I have so many open positions in my account with them all the time it'd be really difficult for me to keep track of any errors. I might want to though if you find they're not correct in their calculations.
Are you sure it's the CASH position that's changing? That should remain the same unless you open/close a position. Margin & equity can change but CASH shouldn't fluctuate. I have my account loaded with option positions so everyday at market close they recalculate the value even if it didn't trade so they can get a more accurate value of the option & your account but this only changes the equity/liquidation value & not the CASH value.

If you're seeing something fluctuate during the day, do you have many open positions or is it just 1/2/3 positions that are thinly traded so bid/ask is wide thus making it difficult to get an accurate value during the day?
  • #536
  • Aug 30, 2014 3:27am Aug 30, 2014 3:27am
Quoting srt
{quote} Hi KADC, I'd be more interested if you find something you don't like. I have so many open positions in my account with them all the time it'd be really difficult for me to keep track of any errors. I might want to though if you find they're not correct in their calculations. Are you sure it's the CASH position that's changing? That should remain the same unless you open/close a position. Margin & equity can change but CASH shouldn't fluctuate. I have my account loaded with option positions so everyday at market close they recalculate the...
This is the cash position in base currency (CAD) as indicated by TWS. Since I first noticed these unexplained discrepancies I keep track of all amounts (cash balance, unrealized and realized profit/loss, commission, interest, and base currency versus USD) every time I enter and exit a trade and periodically throughout the day.

I'm not at my trading computer so the times and amounts are approximate because I'm going by memory, but between 7 a.m. EST Thursday and 5 p.m. Friday I carried/traded only three vehicles: MGC Oct'14, AUD/USD, and AUD/NZD so this was very easy to calculate. The total of all open and closed positions including commission deductions in base currency was approximately $-185 between those two time periods which also matches my running tally, but sometime after ~10 a.m. EST Friday $100 disappeared from my cash balance and at the end of the day my cash balance was $-290 from where it was Thursday. That's a ~35% variance which cannot be attributed to the change in base currency which was 1.0865 when I noted my balances Thursday morning and 1.0877 at end-of-day Friday.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #537
  • Aug 30, 2014 3:41am Aug 30, 2014 3:41am
Quoting srt
{quote} Hi KADC, I'd be more interested if you find something you don't like. I have so many open positions in my account with them all the time it'd be really difficult for me to keep track of any errors. I might want to though if you find they're not correct in their calculations. Are you sure it's the CASH position that's changing? That should remain the same unless you open/close a position. Margin & equity can change but CASH shouldn't fluctuate. I have my account loaded with option positions so everyday at market close they recalculate the...

Hi SRT,

I'm with IB since a while now. And like you. I was afraid of errors in calculations during a period at the beginning. All the calculations/reports are pretty complicated and there are a lot of details to know, especially when you have an accont with lots of positions and options, daily transactions, etc ...My account has lots of options like you, and many different currencies on it, I'm short some positions, I borrow/lend, and have almost every different asset class you can imagine. From everything I looked at, all the details I undertsood now, I would say that IB does a good job. It happens that a commission or a daily P/L is miscalculated, but it is usually corrected automatically a few days later then (It happened a few time on my account, but not that much)

So, it's always a good thing to try to check your daily reports, even if it gets really annoying after a while, but I guess you can be pretty confident about what IB is doing, at leat according to all the checks I did. About the guy bashing IB about all the (so-called ?) probems he has, I won't even bother answer him anymore. If he has all the problems he is mentionning, why is he still with them ? And about the cash value of your account, what is really important is that you get your money correctly calculated at the end, if there are some little fluctuations from day to day is not that important... Although I agree it should be correctly calculated.
  • #538
  • Aug 30, 2014 3:49am Aug 30, 2014 3:49am
Quoting KADC
{quote} This is the cash position in base currency (CAD) as indicated by TWS. Since I first noticed these unexplained discrepancies I keep track of all amounts (cash balance, unrealized and realized profit/loss, commission, interest, and base currency versus USD) every time I enter and exit a trade and periodically throughout the day. I'm not at my trading computer so the times and amounts are approximate because I'm going by memory, but between 7 a.m. EST Thursday and 5 p.m. Friday I carried/traded only three vehicles: MGC Oct'14, AUD/USD, and...
Kadc, in my experience, the cash value of my account during the week end can't be relied on, at all ! It is true that the account value on friday night, saturday and sunday is usually incorrect. Especially when you have options expiring on your account. You just wait the monday morning, and everything gets correct again ... Even if there are discrepancies from time to time, they don't cumulate, they correct themselves with time, so you don't loose anything. Just relax ... IB has a $10K account minimum, it's not like $100 was a very big amount.
  • #539
  • Aug 30, 2014 4:15am Aug 30, 2014 4:15am
Quoting Mevo
{quote} Kadc, in my experience, the cash value of my account during the week end can't be relied on, at all ! It is true that the account value on friday night, saturday and sunday is usually incorrect. Especially when you have options expiring on your account. You just wait the monday morning, and everything gets correct again ... Even if there are discrepancies from time to time, they don't cumulate, they correct themselves with time, so you don't loose anything. Just relax ... IB has a $10K account minimum, it's not like $100 was a very big amount....
Yes, they do correct themselves eventually, but the fact that these discrepancies surface at all is the issue. I was once the liaison between the comptroller and the programmer developing a custom integrated POS/accounting system and I would have to perform quality control checks verifying the accuracy between the existing accounting in ACCPAC and the new accounting module, and if there was even a half-cent discrepancy (and there was once) it was tracked down and corrected. This was a small mufti-million dollar firm with only a few satellite locations, not a multi-billion dollar international financial operation like Interactive Brokers, so I feel it's reasonable to expect more from them. Imagine if your bank account balance fluctuated throughout the week -- why should IB be held to a lesser standard of accountability?

If these IB account errors were software glitches they would not correct themselves nor would they always be shortages. The only logical conclusion is that IB is purposefully taking small amounts from people's accounts then replacing it at a later date, which is both illegal and immoral, and it's for this reason I keep only minimal balances in my IB account for trading purposes and should there ever be a reliable price-competitive alternative here in Canada I will change brokers without hesitation -- they certainly couldn't have worse charting software.
You can always make money tomorrow provided you don't lose it today.
  • #540
  • Aug 30, 2014 4:38am Aug 30, 2014 4:38am
Kadc, Ok, I agree with the thinking.

About a price competitive alternative in Canada, we're VERY far from it. Even a price competitive alternative anywhere in the world for $10K account, I was unable to find one, by far ! But that's another story.

Now, about what you're pointing out: You are relying on the amounts on REPORTS or in the TWS account window ?
Because if you take the account window in TWS, you have to take in consideration the hours when currencies and products held in your account are recalculated. And to take the same values.

If you rely on reports, did you ask the OPTIONAL SECTIONS I talked to you one month ago ? I hope so, and then, you have the "statement of funds" report where you have the exact details of every movement that led to your current account value. It is totally detailed and to the cent. Just compare this to your own calculations, and you will see where the difference comes from ...
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