BrianS

Regarding the closing partial positions when you have more than one open position. I found a product called zerolinetrader which is about $10 per month. I have not tried this product but it has a lot of interesting potential functionality. I would describe it as an order manager API that works with IB TWS. Specific to this discussion of using TWS as your trading platform, it seems to allow scaling out of a position by a predefined percent or number of shares. There is also a risk management componentas well as B/E stop functionality. Anyway, looks like an interesting addition to TWS. I have never tried any API onto the TWS platform so I cannot say if those already struggling with speed of platform would be adversely affected or not. Link to product ( I am not affiliated in any way). www.zerolinetrader.com

I have run TWS with 768KB ram, which I think is the default, and I have never experienced a crash in almost two years of using it (knock on wood). I have 10 chart windows open and 3 level 2 screens as well as a few watch lists and order entry windows. To SirPatricks question on 1 minute charts, I currently never run charts with a time frame less than 5 minute but I used to look at one minute charts and I would occasionally have some stutter on those charts, but it was rare.

That is such an oddly specific example in the IB legal warning. There are lots of ways to not generate $464 per day in commissions. Going back to your original question about commissions being a deal breaker. I think they can really hurt you if you don't pay attention to them. If you are trading small size, IB commissions in either flat or tiered structure are quite reasonable. I also don't trade a lot of low dollar stocks to keep commission under control. As you size up, they really should just be a similar percentage of your trading volume and might go down as a percentage of your volume because you can get better pricing. My guess on your commissions from your example above would be closer to a total $60 in commissions, ECN fees, clearing fees, and FINRA. I think Norm in chat actually had a basic formula to get you close. Also, some of those fees go away if you add liquidity but I am not an expert on that. Lastly, I trade with IB and am not charged for cancels.

The current price for the standard scanner, the same scanner used in the chatroom, is currently $118 per month. You can also get annual discounts and I think you can even use a code like the VANCOUVER15 for an annual subscription. I have had both the standard and premium but the standard is all I need. And I have even thought about dropping because the chatroom scanners seems to give me most of what I need.

Toan, log in to the Client Portal website, go to home, then hit the drop down for reports and select "Tax." As of this writing, Feb 4, the form was not yet available.

Many traders I have met seem to struggle with taking too big a loss on a trade. I have done it a few times, well actually more than a few times, myself. A few weeks ago, I even watched Andrew do it live in the chat room and it sparked a lot of great discussion. Your situation seems a bit different on the losses bigger than winners though. I think the typical experience on large losses is to keep moving your stop to the next technical level, maybe averaging down a bit because you just cannot be wrong this time, or something like that. Your strategy could be skewed to taking losses because you take profits so quickly. As a matter of preference, I would never take a trade that only had $.10 of first profit target unless it was a very low price stock, say under $1.50. If there isn't more volume and movement than that, then maybe the stock isn't really in play. This is just speculation on my part though. Have you considered looking at your winners where you took first scale out at $.10 or $.15 profit to see if those exits were at a good technical level like support/resistance, prior day close, or one of the moving averages or if you were just getting out to make sure you didn't lose? Also, on your winners how many losses would you have had if you would have played for a little more profit? The answers to these questions might point out whether you exit too quickly or aren't finding the right entry on a moving stock. Both good to know.

Hi Dhat, I have also used TWS and will trade from it. I have a super beefy computer so I have not ever run into slow platform issues. I have also never configured any hot key entries but I think you can do it. My primary dislike with TWS is that I just don't like the charting. I don't like that you cannot see different shades between pre-market and regular trading. I find the scaling clunky and just find making separate windows a pain. I also don't like their drawing tools. All of these things could be overcome I am sure. As Peter mentioned above, they used to not have VWAP that was intraday which is what drove me from the platform but that does seem to be fixed now. One pro is that the symbol linking with Trade-Ideas always worked well for me where ThinkOrSwim would always break. If you are trading larger time frames, I think the order entry is just fine but a lot of people in the community seem to trade a little quicker than I currently do (or am able to) so they might need the faster execution of a platform like DAS or maybe multicharts. Lastly, I also had a little trouble getting data turned on and found that you could not do it through the app but have to go and log into the website. So Peter's last point seems spot on to me. I always feel Interactive Brokers takes pride in trying to confuse me 🙂