IB Integration

[TraderEyal]

Hi,

I wanted to highlight some issues I've been experiencing while trading through the IB plugin. These are the problems I've come across, they are intermittent and usually happen every 5th to 10th trade or so.

1. Order does not pass through to the TWS but remains listed as pending submission in the Broker Window. It is impossible to cancel it or re-submit it.

2. Order was passed and executed by TWS but eSignal does not reflect a position is open in the attached order entry screen.

3. Trying to update a pending order price ends up updating ANOTHER position's pending order or does not update at all. I get this problem consistently, maybe it's a user issue on my part..

I have already contacted tech support via the phone. Despite trying to help these problems are beyond an ordinary tech support Q&A. See ticket 1928621. I have also uninstalled both eSignal and the plug-in and re-installed, it did not solve the problem.

I am curious whether anyone is experiencing these problems?

Lastly, I do not want to see a situation in which this issue is being kicked back and forth between IB and eSignal. The plug-in is hosted on eSginal's site so I presume it was written by you guys and therefore I thought it would make the most sense to raise it here.

Looking forward to hearing of any possible solutions.

Thanks,
Eyal

[eSignal_Brent]

IB Trading Plug-In

Hi TraderEyal,

Yes, we wrote the integration between eSignal and IB. I'll forward these issues to our developers for review.
If I have any follow-up questions, may I PM you directly?

Thanks,

Brent
Integration Trading Product Management

[TraderEyal]

Hi Brent,

Thanks for the quick response. Yes you may pm me. I can also be available on the phone if your guys would like to do any kind of on-the-phone troubleshooting or get more info from me.

Rgds
Eyal

[bfry5282]

Better to use specialized order entry

IMHO it's better to use one of the excellent IB front-ends available, rather than to trade from eSignal itself. I've always used eSignal for data analysis, and kept that quite separate from the actual order entry. Now, I know some people do like the integration, but eSignal's primary job is data analysis and the integration front-ends will never have the subtlety and power of a purpose-built front-end for IB or any other brokerage. Again, just my opinion; your mileage may vary.

[TraderEyal]

bfry5282, Thanks for the suggestion. In my case that won't work very well. It takes too much time and the process is prone to errors. Even with integrated trading it is sometimes difficult to catch on the best moves before they're too far away from a reasonable stop loss.

I can't imagine what it would be like If I had to monitor the charts, decide to get in, switch to IB, type the symbol, select the quantity, enter the limit price and submit the order, go back to the charts and see what happened in the meantime and then repeat this 10 times a day.. I'd go crazy even sooner

The integration works, it's just that there are some issues and glitches at time which I was hoping can be ironed out. I'm sure lots of traders out there who are using this combo would not want to do without this integration.

You have an interesting site there btw. Not my cup of instruments but looks like a cool product.

Good trading.
Eyal

[bfry5282]

I understand you, but that's not the way you should trade with IB's TWS. You should be using preset configurations and Hotkeys, and very little to nothing needs to be typed in. Everyone has to find the trading method that "works for them". I find that Order Entry precision is one of the most important aspects of trading, second only to figuring out what side of the trade you want to be on! Whether or not you use eSignal to trigger your trades, you should really look into some of the more efficient means of using IB's TWS, if only as a backup. For example, I recommend that you not be scanning for stocks which happen to be moving. I know that's one feature many people think is important. Apart from the fact that I wouldn't trade stocks, been there, done that; and that futures contracts are the way to go; you must nevertheless specialize in 1 or just a handful of securities. This means that you have only a limited number of setups. After all, you are trading against professionals and specialists, so it makes sense for you to specialize as well in every way that you can to better ensure your success!

[TraderEyal]

Yes I am familiar with this school of thought which advocates specializing. As you said it's a personal preference. And hey if it ain't broke don't fix it right?

I can operate the TWS at a basic level. I'm not a big fan of Java apps, the sluggishness especially, I'm out of sync with those things. Being able to operate it from within eSignal is a good advantage.

I think I saw somewhere that there's a new version of TWS rolling out soon. Might actually have to read the manual one of these days

[bfry5282]

I disagree that IB's TWS or most Java applications are sluggish. Their inherent multi-threadedness makes them "smooth" and fault tolerant. Like many applications, IB's TWS tries to satisfy so many different criteria and order styles, that it takes some effort to understand how to set it up for your own style. The sheer variety of order types and traders' ideas how to execute orders results in a complex piece of software. I've actually come to the view that these complex order types are ineffective in real trading. All you really need is to hit either the bid or the ask, and the ability to execute a market order. That's it. Traders are kidding themselves if they think in most realistic scenarios that they can actually buy "wholesale"; i.e. that they can actually "join the bidders" and get a fill. They cannot. Just look at ES or any heavily traded issue, and you will realize you cannot be a bidder and hope to get a fill. You must trade retail, and that's just about the same as saying that a Market order is all you need if you execute it at the right time! Not so true in the stock markets, but very much true in the futures markets where trading is fair and orderly. As a retail trader, you need the market to move 2 ticks so that you can get 1 tick. Pay the spread and live with it! But that's a digression!

[gspiker]

I disagree that IB's TWS or most Java applications are sluggish.

Bfry is correct. The belief that Java apps are slow/sluggish is left over from early versions of the JVM. There are a number of benchmarks out there that show Java out performing C and C++ for a number of codesets and some of them even show what types of operation Java does very well, and what it still need a bit of work.

G

[TraderEyal]

Re Java and TWS - It may very well be that they are just as fast and that there is something else which makes it feel different from other types of codes. In any case I find that I can operate Java based s/w somewhat less efficiently and less intuitively than the other types.

Yep, I agree most of the fancy order types are not very useful for me either. At the most I'd just improve on bids or asks. And then I'd sometimes get pissed at myself for trying to shave off a few cents and not getting filled. It still works often enough though.

We've totally moved away from the original issue in this post. I hope the guys at eSignal are sill looking into this and will get back to me.

Good trading.

[TraderEyal]

Any updated?

Brent, Can you please update me on what is the status with this issue.

Thanks
Eyal

[eSignal_Brent]

Re: IB Integration

Hi Eyal,

We've done some fairly extensive stress testing, which involved rapid, multiple and repetitious usage of the Trading Plug-In from eSignal 7.8 into TWS using their public API and demo account.
None of the outcomes documented earlier were reproduced. Below is the results of our tests.

#1) In every one of the ~20-30 limit orders placed outside the bid/ask (ie, buys below bid, shorts and sells above the ask), all orders passed to TWS.
Additionally, all pending orders could be cancelled in the eSignal broker window by double-right-clicking. The cancellation was visible in TWS ~2 sec later.

#2) In each case, filled orders were reflected in the Executions tab.

#3) In each case, the pending order, double-right-clicked in eSignal's broker window, cancelled the corresponding order in TWS.

If anyone else is experiencing these issues, please let me know.
Finally, we will be re-writing the trading interface to IB in the next couple of months. This new interface will initially be a stand-alone application, but the underlying technology is being designed/implemented to be transferrable to eSignal (and Tahoe Charts).

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I regret that we weren't able to address and resolve the specific symptoms you're experiencing.

Brent
Integrated Trading Product Management

Originally posted by TraderEyal
Hi,

I wanted to highlight some issues I've been experiencing while trading through the IB plugin. These are the problems I've come across, they are intermittent and usually happen every 5th to 10th trade or so.

1. Order does not pass through to the TWS but remains listed as pending submission in the Broker Window. It is impossible to cancel it or re-submit it.

2. Order was passed and executed by TWS but eSignal does not reflect a position is open in the attached order entry screen.

3. Trying to update a pending order price ends up updating ANOTHER position's pending order or does not update at all. I get this problem consistently, maybe it's a user issue on my part..

I have already contacted tech support via the phone. Despite trying to help these problems are beyond an ordinary tech support Q&A. See ticket 1928621. I have also uninstalled both eSignal and the plug-in and re-installed, it did not solve the problem.

I am curious whether anyone is experiencing these problems?

Lastly, I do not want to see a situation in which this issue is being kicked back and forth between IB and eSignal. The plug-in is hosted on eSginal's site so I presume it was written by you guys and therefore I thought it would make the most sense to raise it here.

Looking forward to hearing of any possible solutions.

Thanks,
Eyal

[TraderEyal]

Hi Brent,

Thanks for reporting the results. During the time that elapsed since my post I was also able to further 'test' this - i.e. placing my normal trades.

1. This has never happened again since that time. So it can be dropped.

2. This happens EVERY single day, multiple times a day (I'd say about 3-4 times out of 10 trades). The issue is with fills showing in the Attached Order Entry Ticket.

3. I am using the cancel button on the Order Entry Ticket - this works fine.

To sum it up, my only issue with the integration then at this point is that the Order Ticket sometimes doesn't show my open positions which were placed through eSig. This happens very frequently when I place an order which is then pending execution and then load another symbol. If I wait for it to fill and not load another symbol in the meantime then it will in most cases be reflected correctly.

Interesting news about the new development project. I wonder though why would someone need an additional stand-alone application on top of the TWS which isn't part of the charting applications? Would that mean switching back and forth between the three eSignal- eSignal Stand Alone - TWS?

And lastly, the 'million dollar question(s)' would this new interface be a separately chargeable feature and, would the existing plugin continue to be supported in future releases of eSignal?

Appreciate your support.

Rgds
Eyal

[eSignal_Brent]

IB Trading Plug-in

Hi Eyal,

I have them do some more analysis on #2.
The new interface may be priced separately, but we'll likely have a beta test period in which it will be provided in exchange for feedback. Let me know if you're interested and I'll make sure you're included.

Thanks,

Brent
Integrated Trading Product Management

[pj909]

When you do the re-write please make provision for FA accounts.