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Date/Time: Sun, 06 Oct 2024 10:03:42 +0000



Post From: Notice: Upcoming Mandatory US Equities/Stocks Symbol/Data Changes for Interactive Brokers

[2024-03-02 22:43:58]
Sierra_Chart Engineering - Posts: 16572
Interactive Brokers symbology, is complex and inconsistent. These problems come from Interactive Brokers.

We need to organize much better and make perfect as best as possible US equities related Symbol Settings we have for Sierra Chart, for Interactive Brokers.

This is for reasons, of consistency, exchange compliance, to avoid symbol conflicts, and to have a logical structured visible understanding of symbols for Interactive Brokers.

Therefore, the following changes are going to be made, March 16, 2024 for all Interactive Brokers users:

Simple US stock symbols like: SPY, MSFT will only obtain historical, delayed and/or real-time data from one of these two feeds:
Denali Exchange Data Feed (Real-time data)
Delayed Exchange Data Feed (Delayed data)

Depending upon whether you are paying the US Equities Consolidated Tape exchange fee:
https://www.sierrachart.com/UserControlPanel.php?page=DenaliDataFeedSTOCKS (You will receive real-time data for US Equities when paying the exchange fee)


When paying the exchange fee you will get real-time data. Also whether real-time or delayed data is used is dependent upon this setting:
Data/Trade Service Settings: Allow Support for Sierra Chart Data Feeds (Global Settings >> Data/Trade Service Settings >> Common Settings >> Common Other Settings)

In the background there will no longer be any mapping between simple stock symbols (Like IBM) and the more complex symbol used by Interactive Brokers (IBM-STK-SMART/NYSE-USD):
Interactive Brokers Symbols: Stock Format

The existing mapping from simple stock symbols to the full required Interactive Brokers symbol is not consistent and complete, and is doing something in the background which is not apparent to users. It is also no longer being maintained and has been getting out of date all of these years.

Therefore, when you are wanting to use Interactive Brokers data for US stocks/equities, instead of Sierra Chart provided data, you need to use to complete symbol format:
Interactive Brokers Symbols: Stock Format

You also need to use this symbol format for trading. And set the Trade and Current Quote Symbol (Chart >> Chart Settings) to this symbol format:
Chart Settings: Trade and Current Quote Symbol (text box) (Chart >> Chart Settings >> Symbol >> Symbol menu)


The typical symbol formats that you will use for a US equities chart for Interactive Brokers will be as follows. This is an example of the settings in Chart >> Chart Settings:

Symbol: IBM
Trade and Current Quote Symbol:   IBM-STK-SMART/NYSE-USD (Leave blank if you will not be trading from the chart)

This will give you high quality and reliable Sierra Chart market data for IBM and let you trade IBM.

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There have been over the years, comments to us about the complexity of Interactive Brokers symbols. We cannot help with that and we are not going to help with that.

One of the reasons why we are doing what we are doing, is an exchange compliance reason and we will not go into details about that.

But these changes are going to be deployed March 16, 2024 and this is final.
Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level

Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy:
https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation

For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, use the Teton service:
Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing
Date Time Of Last Edit: 2024-03-17 00:46:12