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Direct MessagesDate/Time: Fri, 03 May 2024 03:24:18 +0000
Post From: Your experiences with Interactive Brokers
| [2021-02-18 02:17:38] |
| User753624 - Posts: 23 |
|
For what it's worth, I've been using Sierra Chart and IBKR together for over a year. At one point I was worried about all of the daily warnings when I start up Sierra Chart and so I spoke over the phone with a kind gentleman from Sierra Chart who told me about a few options for brokers that I would be able to use SC Order Routing with. After researching those other firms, I decided to stick with IBKR unless it wound up becoming a recurrently problematic combination (I wasn't having issues with it at the time, I was mainly just concerned about the warnings). I stuck with IBKR mainly because I preferred having a very well-capitalized, very widely used broker with full CME margin requirements (less chance of catastrophic failure and higher likelihood of good quality order routing and fast clearing). Something to consider with order execution is that the clearing firm can potentially be a bottleneck so even if the routing is extremely fast, which TT is supposed to be (I don't have personal experience with it), if the FCM isn't particularly fast then that'll still wind up resulting in slower executions. Now that's probably not going to be that significant of an issue for discretionary traders since our strategies typically aren't latency dependent (and by the time we've seen the information on the screen, made a decision, and pointed and clicked the algos have certainly already beat us to the punch). That being said, I figure an FCM with $5 billion in adjusted net capital requirements according to CFTC reports very likely has much better infrastructure in place than an FCM with $5 million. These are things based on my limited understanding of market microstructure so if I made any errors in my reasoning it'd be great to hear from SC Engineers or someone more well-versed in this stuff than me. Anyway, as a result of these considerations, IBKR was the best option that I could find for my needs, preferences, and conclusions. Plus with the all-in rates at a firm like AMP I would have likely wound up paying close to the same so it didn't make sense to me to switch from IBKR. As a side note, remember when CL traded into the negatives last year and IBKR covered the multi-million dollar losses of traders who were effected by IBKR's issues with data and trading? I know that's an extenuating circumstance (and brokers make people sign a form saying that we're always responsible for issues) but it's nice to know that the firm I'm trading through is well-capitalized enough to weather those sorts of storms. With that background information aside, I have been pleased with the integration between Sierra Chart and IBKR. I briefly tried using IBKR data sometime last year and very quickly went back to the Denali Feed. The actual setup was not difficult at all since, like most things, it's very clearly written out in SC's documentation (just read through it slowly and carefully and it should be an easy setup, took me less than 20 minutes to do and I'm not computer savvy). I keep my IBKR TWS DOM up on my secondary screen just in case there's some sort of software failure and I need to be able to quickly flatten my position. I don't know why Sierra Chart engineers dislike IBKR as much as they do, but I find their integration to be solid. Additionally, SC's only option for non-CME markets (as far as I know) is IBKR so I'm guessing they have to maintain very strong integration between the software so that they can provide access to equity markets. If I had to switch (which I'd only do if I had recurrent issues and/or SC stopped supporting IBKR), then I'd give a serious look to Optimus Futures (I've had a few conversations with Matt Zimberg and I was very impressed by him, if I had been a more experienced trader at the time I may have just opened an account with him instead of IBKR) or possibly Morad Askar's firm (I don't know what it's called, I think it is either Stage5, EdgeClear, or Convergent). Advantage Futures is another firm I'd consider. These are all somewhat smaller firms though so some of the considerations I listed above come into play. The other option would be to just go to another well-capitalized firm like TradeStation (though that would mean giving up SC) or to use a different front-end platform for IBKR. So there's lots of options, if you're on the fence about SC + IBKR and you can't find another option that suits your needs then I'll say that I've been happy with my experience with the combination. (Suuuuuuuper long-winded response!) TL;DR - IBKR + SC has been fine. |