US Futures Order Handling Rules
Certain types of orders are not natively supported on all exchanges. Interactive Brokers may simulate these order types on its books and submit the order to the exchange when it becomes marketable. The IB website contains a page with exchange listings. The linked page for each exchange contains an expandable “Order Types” section, listing the native order types accepted by that exchange and the order types that are simulated by IB for that exchange. See our Exchange Listings.
Please note the following rules for stop, stop-limit and other orders on the US futures exchanges.
Stop Orders: Stop orders are not supported by the E-CBOT. Interactive Brokers provides customers with simulated stop orders. Orders can be placed at anytime during trading hours.
Stop-Limit Orders: Stop-limit orders configured to trigger outside RTH are native to ECBOT and can be placed at any time during trading hours. Stop-limit orders on ECBOT (and NYMEX) configured to trigger outside of regular trading hours with a trigger method set to bid/ask may trigger based on pre-opening quotes. Please note the following restrictions placed by ECBOT:
- Trades outside the “fair market value” will be cancelled by ECBOT and the party responsible for entering the order into the electronic trading system that gave rise to the trade cancellation or price adjustment shall pay an administrative fee to the Exchange in the amount of $500 for each such occurrence.
- Closed daily from 17:00 - 20:40 and 23:40 - 00:15 ET for CBOT/IB daily maintenance.
- Day orders will be cancelled at 17:00 ET.
- GTC and GTD orders cannot be cancelled from 23:40 - 00:15 ET.
Stop Orders: Stop orders are not natively supported on CME/Globex. Interactive Brokers provides customers
with simulated stop orders. Simulated stop orders will only trigger
during regular trading hours unless configured by the customer.
Regular trading hours for most but not all products are from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time. Regular trading hour information for an individual product may be found using the contract search. To allow Stop orders to work outside of regular
trading hours, in the TWS order line use the TIF dropdown to check Fill/Trigger outside RTH. If this selection is grayed out, the order is not eligible to work after hours. To set a global default for all eligible Globex Stop orders to automatically be set to trigger and fill outside regular hours, on the Configure menu select Order Presets. In the Futures preset, check the Settings entry Allow order to be activated, triggered, or filled outside of regular trading hours.
Stop-Limit Orders: Stop-Limit orders configured to trigger outside RTH are native to GLOBEX and can be placed at anytime during trading hours. Please note the following restrictions placed by GLOBEX:
For Sell Stop-Limit Orders, the limit price must be <= stop price (aux. price)
For Buy Stop-Limit Orders, the limit price must be >= stop price (aux. price)