Support Board
Date/Time: Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:35:30 +0000
Post From: Your experiences with Interactive Brokers
| [2020-02-25 15:26:25] |
| User753624 - Posts: 23 |
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Hi like2trade, For the past few weeks I've been honing my methodology on SIM so I'm not aware if something has significantly changed in that period. That said, in order for Sierra Chart to work when it's set to work with IBKR, TWS must be running in the background and I haven't had any connectivity issues whatsoever. That leads me to believe that the API is still working just as well as it was before. When I did place live trades they were all made through the DOM on SC and the fills were very fast and reliable. In many instances they actually seemed to fill even more quickly than a typical limit order in SIM. By default TWS gives me a pop-up notification when I was filled both on entries and exits. Market orders were virtually instantaneous. I keep TWS minimized on the same computer that's running SC when I'm trading and the API has been fine in my experience. Prior to setting up SC with IBKR I was also nervous about doing so because of the documentation on the SC website (I'm not sure if they've recently added any more warnings to that page but I have seen the pop-up when SC is started up). I emailed a trader who's been in field for far longer than I have and who I know uses SC before I set things up the way I have them. I asked him what brokerage he uses and he told me that he uses IBKR without issues. I'm not sure if he has recently switched since SC is urging users to do so, but at the time he told me that he had no problems. In my opinion, I think the documentation on here tends to be a bit more intimidating than things are in practice. I was initially somewhat reluctant to get SC in the first place because I thought it would be difficult to setup, but it's actually been very easy to navigate and setup in the way that I like. Similarly, I was initially a bit apprehensive to ask for help from the SC support staff but all of my direct interactions with them have been very pleasant and they've been tremendously quick and helpful in their responses. So knowing that, I'm not about to switch brokers just due to the more recent messages. Also, before I setup SC with IBKR TWS, I spoke to their API department and they told me that SC is one of the top three most used third-party software packages with IBKR. Given that, I highly doubt that IBKR is going to allow their API to become unreliable since that could potentially result in a large loss of customers. Also given that IBKR's futures trading is a very large part of their business and they're one of the largest players according to the CFTC report that I referenced before, I'm inclined to believe that their order routing to the exchanges is top-notch, otherwise people would look elsewhere. The other reason that I'm going to continue using IBKR unless I personally experience consistent issues is because the alternatives typically require using an introducing broker. That's an additional moving part to something that already has multiple potential points of failure. All of that being said, keep in mind that I'm only one user and SC Support has far more insight into the intricacies of all of this. If you want to be a bit more conservative, then picking one of the services that works with SC Order Routing will probably be a good option. For what it's worth, if I did have to switch I'd probably seriously consider Optimus Futures if I had to use an introducing broker (had some very good interactions with Matt Zimberg) most likely using Dorman as the ECN. Tradovate, again using Dorman, also seems to be a good option. If I remember the commissions structure correctly I believe both would actually be a little cheaper than IBKR even with SC's order routing fee of 10 cents per side. If I was using SC Order Routing I'd likely get in touch with all of the different options that SC lists on their page to get a feel for each. For now though, I'm happy to stay with IBKR since they're a substantially larger broker and ECN than the other options. I hope that helps! |