I just lost 15% of my account(it was a futures trade, not FOREX) as my 3% stop loss was not executed.
And it was MY fault. So, it you are using these people(they are cheap-probably for a reason), at least learn from my “mistake”, please!
I placed a limit buy order on 30 year bond contract last night before going to bed, with a 5 tick($156) stop loss.
The order executed at 3AM local time and hit the stop loss at 4:30AM…and again 1 tick through it at 8:10AM.
At 8:30, US announcements drove it down, for a third time, below my stop loss and went down another 16 ticks until
I realized it and sold it for a lovely 23 tick loss, instead of the 5 ticks.
After a phone call to a rep I had waited on hold for 25 minutes, he told me something that i didn’t understand/couldn’t understand his American accent(my fault, I know).
Numerous emails later, apparently they will exercise a limit order in “off hours” as there is no risk, but will NOT execute
a stop loss order in “off hours” unless you check a box somewhere on the site saying you understand that a stop loss has risk in “off hours” and it’s ok for them to execute the stop loss at all times. Otherwise, it’ll be executed in “regular trading hours”.
So, MY mistake. Hopefully, anyone who uses that platform knows this before you find out the hard way.
Hey C, IB is a broker that, well is basically self service. I don’t know what size you are trading, but if I was looking for a broker with multiple products, I would use RJO’Brien, you might pay a bit more on the retail side, but you will always be able to talk to an account rep, and they don’t mind answering questions regarding order fills, executions, etc. They will also guide you through their platforms etc.
I have tried IB, don’t like the platform, the Spot Currency data they were pushing to my NeoTicker was buggy, and sometime down-rite trash. Also customer service was non existent. As you have pointed out they have all sorts of stuff in writing, but finding it, well thats the RUB.
Obviously I don’t really care for the I.B. model for retail traders, the money you save is nothing compared to aggravation if something goes wrong, so anyway I hope you can Psychologically recover from this loss
The Ever Well Wishing VIPER
I use Daniels Trading, which I think is “like” RJO’Brien for most of my futures trading. The IB account was left over from my stock/options trading days, and like you said, it’s CHEAP(think that f’ed up trade I mentioned was $1.67) and I just started
trading bonds so I thought I’d use it just for that. Had a couple profitable trades where the stop loss didn’t come into play.
Gave ALL that back, needless to say. It was never a problem with the stocks/options, but they don’t trade after hours so never experienced today’s screw-up!
Yes, the platform does, uh, stink. Charts horrible. REALLY surprising how bad the platform is but didn’t I mention how CHEAP the trades were…
Thanks for the reply. I REALLY needed to vent! I’m SO careful not to lose big!