TWS Notes for 888
The enhancements
and modifications below are in build 888 of TWS. To identify
the build number, on the TWS Help menu
select About Trader Workstation.
IB's Price/Risk analytics suite has replaced the Option Model Editor with the new Model Navigator. The Model Navigator allows you to modify the pricing assumptions used to calculate option model prices, including interest rates, dividends and implied volatilities, and recalculate the model price. This new tool uses an enhanced model calculation engine. In addition, the new Model Navigator clearly shows the option's structure, differentiates between a future and stock underlying, and includes better editing capabilities and graphical mode.
Access the Model Navigator from the Analytics menu. For more information, see the TWS Users' Guide.
TWS can now display positions held outside of IB. To view away positions, check the Include Away positions.. checkbox in the Display, Ticker Row section of Global Configuration. Away positions will be shown on a new tab in the Positions section of the Account window, in the Position field displayed on any TWS trading page, and on the Portfolio page.
Note that the values in the Position field will be aggregated to include both positions held at IB and away positions on the same contract, but if you elect to "close" an aggregated position, only the portion held at IB will traded.
The index panel of the TWS BasketTrader has become it's own IndexTrader tool. This feature allows you to customize a basket based on an index, and save your custom settings as a basket file. You can also use the index panel on the BasketTrader to create and fine-tune index-based baskets, but you can only save the orders as a basket file from the IndexTrader tool. To open IndexTrader, from the Tools menu select IndexTrader.
A new TIF setting is available for orders set to trade during regular trading hours, Ignore Opening Auction, which modifies smart routing for NYSE and AMEX stocks and allows an order to execute during regular trading hours (9:30 am ET) but before the opening auction has occurred. The order may still participate in the opening auction. This feature will not be available if:
- The order is Smart routed and has Pre-open Re-route selected, or
- The order is a Scale order and the Restore size after taking profit box is checked.
Currently, any changes to settings in TWS are automatically saved. With the addition of a new command Auto Save Settings to the File menu, users can now choose whether or not they want settings to be automatically saved. If you uncheck this box, settings changes will be lost when you log off TWS unless you use the manual Save Settings from the File menu. If you select Save Settings As from the File menu, you can specify a new location and name for this session's settings file.
A new checkbox to Favor Price Improvements sweeps certain exchanges for hidden liquidity at more favorable prices, and then checks the dark pools as usual before routing to an exchange. This checkbox has been added to the Miscellaneous tab of the Order Ticket for a per-order setting, and can be set as a default from the Smart Routing page of Global Configuration. Please note that enabling this feature may result in slower execution times.
The real-time charts have been enhanced again this release to include additional Time Period selection of 2 and 3 years, and to include the ability to combine contracts on the same chart when you select Add New Chart from the Chart menu. When you select the Combined Contracts radio button, the new symbol or chart parameters displays in the same window as the current selected chart for direct comparison.
The ChartTrader has also been enhanced to include a cleaned-up version of the Buttons panel with the Transmit, Cancel and Modify buttons removed. The Transmit and Cancel functions now display as icons directly below the ChartTrader order line in the chart. An order can be modified within the chart by simply clicking and dragging to another price level. In addition, the ChartTrader order lines now have the same right-click menu access as an order in the Orders panel. A new configuration setting, Align chart trader top, moves the tabbed set of panels to the top of the window when checked. Enable this setting from the Charts> Settings page in Global Configuration.
The ScaleTrader has been enhanced as follows:
- A new optional feature, Auto price adjustment, has been added to the Profit Orders functionality. This option automatically updates the price of the parent order at specified time intervals and by a specified amount.
- It has also been modified to correctly handle the Deactivate/Reactivate feature.
- You can now enter a fractional value in the Price Increment field when setting up scale parameters.
- The method for calculating the scale initial position in the case of restarting a scale order has been reworked to more accurately populate this value.
The Market Data and Order columns tabs in the Page Layout Manager now include a search/filter field to make it easier for you to find available columns and add them to the selected layout. Type the column text into the field and TWS filters out all but the column you are searching on and shows you the category under which the column is sorted.
The Buttons Panel can now be displayed on any TWS trading page using the Buttons Panel icon (the letter "B") on the top right of the trading window just below the tabset. To configure or add new buttons, right-click in the Buttons panel and select Configure Buttons. In addition, a new Show Rapid Order Entry Panel icon has also been added to this toolbar.
A new Current Price order column displays the current price of a Relative order at the exchange. This current price is also displayed when you mouse-over the limit price field of a relative order line. To include this field on your trading window, right-click in the row of column titles, and select Customize Layout. From the Order Columns page, expand the Prices category under Available Columns, and double-click Current Price.
The following items have been fixed or modified in build 888 of TWS:
Advisor functionality has been enhanced or modified as follows:
- The Summary in the Advisor Account window can now be printed using the Print Summary button.
- Also in the Account window, you can now select from Account Groups along with individual accounts and "All" from the Select Account dropdown used to filter trades.
- The default allocation defined in Global Configuration was not being applied.
- The option to Ensure shares can be allocated as specified has been modified to be turned on by default for new users, and to remain checked when user upgrades to the next version of TWS.
- Previously selecting a new account from the Select Account list on the Portfolio page cleared all tickers and orders, and user had to uncheck and recheck Show orders and trades for all accounts. This has been fixed.
- An invalid message saying Account does not have trading permissions was displayed when user changed the subscribed account and then created an order from the Portfolio page.
- The option to Use currently subscribed account for allocations is now selected by default for new users.
- The Trades Summary window was displaying incorrect values for modified orders. This has been fixed.
- In BookTrader, the Reverse Position button functionality has been fixed to: use the correct allocation; use the correct quantity, instead of always using 100, for Instantaneous Transmission orders.
- In Rebalance, zero position rows were being displayed when this feature had not been enabled via the checkbox.
Integrated Stock Window (ISW) enhancements and fixes include:
- A new Auto order type has been added to the ISW Type field. The auto order attempts to figure out what order type will best satisfy your needs based on the order field values you enter. Currently, the Auto order can assign an order type of Market, Limit, Stop, Stop Limit and VWAP. If you select Auto and the ISW cannot find the best order, you can select from the sub-orders of the Auto order group.
- When the Show field has a value of zero, TWS will understand that the order should be Hidden. This feature replaces the Hidden order attribute checkbox that was previously displayed in the ISW sub-panels list.
- The Integrated Stock Window (ISW) has been modified to correctly enable the New/Reset button when user "restores" saved settings, and to correctly load the chart for the ISW symbol.
- The VWAP data field in the FT view of the Quote panel now accurately displays the VWAP.
- A progress bar has now been added to the Charts download process to verify charts are actually being downloaded.
Fixes to the real-time charts include:
- Modifying the tick unit for charts with a 3 month time period to use one day rather than one week;
- Ensuring the What to Show list in the Chart Parameters box displays the correct selections;
- The Quote Panel in ChartTrader was not generating an order when the user clicked the Bid or Ask price.
- The Shift Time Period feature now accurately modifies and displays an adjust time period on charts that also include an indicator line.
- The VWAP calculation for 5 second updates has been corrected.
- The Cancel All menu command now works as expected.
- If you open too many chart windows (over 50) TWS now displays a warning message asking you to close some windows instead of simply shutting all charts.
- BasketTrader - the process to save orders as a .csv basket file for editing in Excel was incorrectly inserting spaces between rows, causing BasketTrader to reject these files. Also, an optional checkbox to Remember my settings has been added to the message which states that the "actual value of the basket can be significantly higher..." Check this box to keep the message from popping up. To re-enable a message, go to the Messages page of Global Configuration.
- The Open Interest field on OptionTrader has been fixed to show data as soon as it is added. Previously data only displayed after the user switched pages and then returned to the OptionTrader window.
- The Unrealized P&L and Change market data columns now include a set of right-click radio buttons to switch between Display Value and Display Percentage. If you choose to Display Percentage, the percent sign appears to the right of the column title.
- You can now apply a page layout to the Pending orders page. To modify page layouts, open the Trading Window section of Global Configuration. Additionally, you can also delete trading pages with working orders after agreeing to Cancel All Orders.
- The error report dialog box asking if you want to send an error log to IB in the event of a problem with TWS now includes a checkbox to Send Screenshot with the error log. Keeping this checked may help to expedite problem resolutions.
- The color of the Average Price value has been changed to accurately reflect the sign of the position (blue for positive position, red for negative).
- A new Minimize button has been added to the Unlock Application dialog box. Click to minimize all locked TWS windows. To lock TWS, select Lock Application from the File menu. The Unlock Application dialog box appears after you lock TWS. To unlock, enter your TWS password and click Unlock.
- The Adjust Average Price calculation for LSE stocks has been fixed to get the correct adjusted average price.
- The Order Defaults page now displays an information message telling you that "trading outside regular trading hours is not supported for market orders" when these two mutually exclusive defaults, Market as the default order type and "...outside regular trading hours" are both set. The instruction to allow fills outside regular trading hours will be the default application only when a supported order type is selected.
- An issue with the Buy or Sell Specific Product hotkey resulted in a hotkey to buy or sell nothing if a product was not selected during setup. This has been fixed.
- The FXTrader did not properly handle existing orders if the window was closed and reopened. This has been fixed.
- Electing to Close All Positions from the Orders menu sometimes resulted in two orders being submitted and the position being reversed rather than closed.
- If the user creates a combination order that already exists, the Description box simply remains empty. This has been changed to automatically highlight the existing duplicate combo order. Similarly, since TWS does not support having a symbol twice on the same page, trying to add a duplicate symbol on the same trading page would result in no action. This has been changed to instead highlight the existing occurrence of the symbol. Note that you may add duplicate symbols on separate pages.
- A new checkbox to "Generate Label" has been added to the Configure Button dialog box. When creating a new button, TWS will automatically generate the descriptive text on the button if this feature is left checked.
- For some orders, if you click in the Price field the order is considered modified even if you do not make any change to the price. This has been fixed.
- The ability to "scale" a limit order into multiple pieces is now available as a hotkey, along with the Duplicate order command. These command are also available from the right-click menu on an order under the Create submenu.
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