Huge Mistake Today with Hot Keys

[Stanomatic 2]

Post from my blog

Today a very unfortunate incident happened. I have a chat application, Discord, where I programmed a hot key to be Alt-P for voice push to talk. Unfortunately, inside of DAS Pro there was a hot key Alt-P that submitted a live order, Long for DLRT. DLRT was going to be a short for me today. I immediately saw the order and tried to cancel inside of DAS Pro. Every time I submitted the order to cancel I received the PDT warning in DAS Pro. I had over the limit rule of $25,000 in my account when the first order was submitted. Apparently if you lose money during that trade and you fall below the $25,000 limit you are now flagged as a Pattern Day Trader (PDT). No action inside of DAS Pro would cancel the order. I jumped on DAS Pro chat which wasted 10 minutes and they said I had to work with my broker Interactive Brokers.

 

I tried to cancel through Trader Workstation and I received a message that I thought was a rejection because of the PDT rule. I was in such a panic I didn’t understand the message was explaining an override to the PDT.

 

I called Interactive Broker and finally the position was closed with a loss of -$2203.43. I should be able to close the trade that I opened. I was above the PDT rule when the order was submitted. I don’t need any messages anywhere preventing me to close out a failing trade.

 

As far as the Hot Key was concerned, I used a setup from one of the training schools. I changed some hot keys to my liking but I never deleted out the old Hot Keys.

 

Lesson’s Learned

 

1. Understand how your broker works. In this case, IB, will flag you as a PDT trader if you fall under the rule of $25,000 DURING THE TRADE. Start your account with $30,000 to give wiggle room for draw downs.

 

2. Know and use ONLY THE HOT KEYS THAT YOU NEED. Delete out all other Hot Keys so you don’t accidentally submit an order.

 

I have taken care of my Hot Keys in DAS Pro.

 

Naturally, this incident would have been nice if the accident went in my favor. I guess I was right on my initial SHORT direction for DLRT but the hot key mistake was costly.

[Andrew Aziz 98]

This is very surprising and unfortunate. Sorry about this. I am shocked tht they did not let you close your position. I was under this impression that Often PDT prevent you from entering a trade not closing it.

 

did you try to use PANIC hotkey DAS has?

[Robert H 455]

I'm so sorry to hear that, Stan. I just removed all unnecessary hotkeys after reading this.

 

Thank you for openly sharing this story as a warning to others.

[Abiel 475]

Sorry about this.... thank you for sharing the lessons with us...

[Stanomatic 2]

I tried Panic, every key I could hit, physically using a mouse and the buttons on Montage, smashing keyboard, contacting the White House… Ok, maybe not that extreme but yes I tried the panic button Shift Esc. Here is my theory:

1. IB sees that closing your trade will drop you under PDT rule. The next trade that drops you below $25,000, even though you are already in a trade and you had no rule against you will flag the system.

2. Since Trade Station makes you press an Override button once you submit your trade, I think DAS Pro doesn’t know how to handle that situation. DAS Pro is probably sending the information but getting denied. I saw the warning in DAS Pro of PDT rule and thought that is stupid. I entered the trade while in compliance they should let me exit a bad situation. I think that STINKS.