Using IB Friends and Family Account doesn't work

[WallstreetNYork]

While the IBbridge is working fine with a single account, I was not able to connect it properly with a IB Friends & Family account (also used by advisors) for multiple accounts.

The bridge seems to lack the information which subaccount of the multiple account shall be approached.

Is there a way to let the API know the account number or is it scheduled to be integrated in the bridge in the near future?

[eSignal_AveryH]

Could you pleaes provide more information as to what you man it

The bridge seems to lack the information which subaccount of the multiple account shall be approached.

Can you please provide more information os that we can better investigate?

Is there a way to let the API know the account number or is it scheduled to be integrated in the bridge in the near future?

To be able to trade a single account you can select Single Account from the FA Allocation and choose the account you want the trae t go to from the Account drop down menu.

Hope this helps.

[WallstreetNYork]

automtic subaccounts changes

Hello AveryH,
Thank you very much for your reply.

I understood this and it works perfect now.

There is one thing left, which seems strange:
When a subaccount is selected in the TWS and the Esignal is connected, suddenly the accounts are rolling forward (see red ring in the picture), meaning, that i.e I choose subaccount A1, then without any cause, TWS is changing one after one to subacc A2xxx, B4xx until the highest subaccountnumber which is S2xxx.

After a few seconds it starts again with the lowest account number.

This behaviour stopps as soon as I disconnect esignal.


Can this changing without cause be avoided?

Best regards.
WallstreetNYork

[eSignal_AveryH]

This is the expected action, what's happening is every 6 to 10 seconds eSignal needed to verify the information for each of your accounts and the way it does it is to scrolls through each pulling your positions.

To stop the scrolling you can create a new tab in TWS using the Advisor-->Account Groups. Create a second portfolio and add the accounts you want to watch in to it. This will stop the scrolling and combine all of the account like the Portfolio window does.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[WallstreetNYork]

Hi AveryH,
Thank you very much again, I deeply appreciate your help.

I think going this way will be able to circumvent the problem, however, now, I need some practice to check, if all required information (not only about portfolio, but even watchlists) will be available.


May I recommend something in that matter? As you said, it is a feature to have this scrolling. Wouldn't it be a good idea, to end up at least with the account which was selected originally, instead of ending with the account which has the highest number.

So, for now, thank you again, I am going to check your solution next week in praxi.

Best regards
WallstreetNYork

[hanspeterusa]

eSignal not recognizing and reacting to IB error/warning

When I trade directly from IB's TWS trading platform, it will warn me if I attempt to submit a buy or sell order for an Advisor account (I have it named as "Master"). Instead, I must select an allocation. (See illustration below.)

However, when I trade using eSignal's IB plug-in, it will allow me to submit and execute an order for an Advisor account by mistake with no allocation specified (very easy to do). I am surprised that IB's API even allows this to occur, especially since there are zero funds deposited into this account for trading. And it takes a lot of work to fix this mistake. Thankfully, I am only practicing with the plug-in using a paper trading account.

I would like to suggest as a future enhancement that there be a way for the IB plug-in to either monitor for this error condition or for us to tell the plug-in which account is an Advisor account so that it will not allow an order to be submitted against it, but instead make certain that the order goes to the selected allocation. This will help make trading with the plug-in more user friendly.

[hanspeterusa]

Mis-allocation of trade into advisor/master account

I only trade from a chart in eSignal using the plug-in when I have time and use a paper trading account until I am comfortable with it. I tried it again yesterday and experienced similar issues as before. I believe this can be duplicated and so I'll try to test this again later next week. I will try to explain my process as clearly as possible. When I submit an order with a bracket (stop & target), this worked fine. I then reduced the size of the target limit order from the chart and left the stop order the same. This worked fine too. But after the limit order got hit and executed, an open position mysteriously appeared in the advisor/master account, which should never have happened b/c this is a non-funded account only used as a "master control" for allocating trades to other accounts in IB.

I contacted IB and talked to several specialists. They agreed that this should never have happened, even with the plug-in. One of the API specialists at IB, name is Angel, said a couple of things. More importantly, the API should have passed an error message or code to eSignal when an attempt to open a trading position in an advisor/master account is made. So this raises some questions, such as: is the API properly doing its job and is eSignal's plug-in ignoring the error code, or visa versa? The other noteworthy statement made by IB is that the API for a paper trading account "isn't perfect" in that this issue may not occur on a live account! (Yikes! I'm scared to even try this again with real money!)

Nevertheless, IB wants to escalate this issue on their end and I promised to contact them when I am able to have the time to duplicate this scenario again. They apparently have a way to remotely view my trading activity on their servers.

[WallstreetNYork]

test between esignal and IB

Hello Hanspeterusa
You can perform your test on a real account, if you do this with a limit buy order, which surely will never be filled: Like buy 1 IBM Limit 1$valid just DAY.
So, after sent to IB you can cancel it in the TWS and by maximum it will be cancelled end of the day.

I usually use this technique, when testing something.

We appreciate if you share your results here.

Best regards
WallstreetNYork