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Overnight Trading at Interactive Brokers Using TWS

Lesson 1 of 5
Duration 3:51
Level Beginner
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Interactive Brokers offers trading in overnight hours for over 10,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs. Market data is provided for free, and existing US stock trading permission is sufficient to allow trading. Trades can be placed within TWS, Client Portal and Mobile TWS. Overnight trading hours are from 8:00pm ET to 3:50am ET with the first session beginning on Sunday at 8:00pm ET and the last session ending at 3:50am ET. Trades executed between 8:00pm and 12:00am will carry a trade date of the following day. For a full listing of the available stocks and ETFs see the exchange listing page on the website.

Interactive Brokers has partnered with liquidity provider Blue Ocean to offer access to streaming quotes beyond the two typical sessions – regular and extended US-trading hours. It is important to note that orders intended for overnight trading are treated separately from orders submitted during the day, or where submitted orders use the extended trading hours time-in-force designation. In other words, investors should think of overnight orders as an independent venue

Within the Order Entry panel inside TWS, users can see the order destination or routing flow by clicking the Advanced expansion menu to the lower right. In the Destination drop down menu in the upper left of the Advanced pop-up window, click the down arrow to reveal the exchange and routing menu. By default the selection is set to SMART. Within the list there are two possible venues whose selection would permit overnight trading: IBEOS and Overnight.

IBEOS is IBKR’s internal overnight venue.

OVERNIGHT combines internal and external liquidity providers to display the live NBBO for all available liquidity. It is not necessary to open the Advanced menu and manually select the OVERNIGHT destination, as we have automated that process for your convenience. Let’s demonstrate this within TWS. 

Enter a ticker symbol in TWS. Select Buy or Sell and enter a number of shares in the quantity field. Due to the less liquid conditions in thin markets outside of regular trading hours, clients are restricted to limit order types, and therefore should enter a limit price. From the time in force dropdown menu, check the Overnight Trading box. A yellow crescent moon icon appears to the left of the time in force selection box, which is set by default to Day. 

Note: Overnight orders remain in the system for a single session and is considered a “DAY” order. If they do not fill overnight, the order will expire and disappear. The client would need to resubmit another overnight limit order the following day. 

When satisfied, click Submit to send your order. The order will appear in the Activity Panel to the lower left of Mosaic TWS. Live orders may be cancelled or amended from here.

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If you have a general question, it may already be covered in our FAQs. If you have an account-specific question or concern, please reach out to Client Services.

9 thoughts on “Overnight Trading at Interactive Brokers Using TWS”

  • Michael Sharpe

    When entering an order the selection of time of order does not give the option for Overnight Trading. Which version of the Desktop TWS should be used to show that option? An order can be entered using the advanced tab but I’m curious as to why this option doesn’t appear as shown on the video.

    • Interactive Brokers

      Hi Michael, it’s not available in Stable (10.26) but is in Latest (so will also be in beta). We hope this answers your question!

  • Bob

    There is a very big disadvantage in overnight displaying quotas which greatly reduces the usefulness of the overnight trading. Here it is:

    Initially your system does not show orders with the number of shares less than 100.
    Nevertheless for the overnight trading you have enabled the mechanism for rounding orders with the number of shares < 100 to a whole lot. I.e., an order with 7 shares, for example, will be shown as an order with 100 shares. And by the way, an order with shares from 100 to 199 will also be shown as an order with 100 shares. But that's not all! This mechanism is used only for your (IB) clients' orders. However if an order with shares < 100 is placed from another broker, the mechanism does not work and the order is not displayed. Moreover such order "screens" all orders that are lower in price (for bid) or higher (for ask). As a result we do not see real quotas, which makes it very difficult to trade overnight successfully.

    The way to solve this problem is very simple – please make a display of the true number of shares in the orders without any rounding to whole lots, at least for overnight trading.

    Thank you for your patience if you read to the end and thank you in advance if you do anything in this direction.

    • Interactive Brokers

      Hello Bob, thank you for reaching out. If you would like us to investigate further, please send an email with more details to social@ibkr.com. We kindly ask that you include screenshots of the messages you mentioned above as well as the email associated with your IBKR application/account. We look forward to assisting you.

  • Scott

    What Bob said. Current showing of odd-lots as round lots is a huge disservice. Show the real number or allow the filtering out of odd-lots.

  • Anonymous

    How to designate order object in API for overnight execution?

  • Jim Davis

    Yes, this has been a big problem since DAY 1,

    Too many fills of only a few shares when they claim 100 bid or ask. Im not even sure its really odd lots . Just the liquidity provider not willing to sell more than a token number of shares. But you pay a full $1 commission and get a 5 share fill.

    Also, Time and sales only shows up if you create a new OVERNIGHT line. Would be better to stream the BLUE dealer using the normal SMART quote line, if thats possible .

    A bigger problem ….. NO SCANS for activity. No scans for changes in price or volume . The only way to see whats going on , is randomly looking at symbols you might already have loaded . I would have thought there would be an activity (trade count) scan by now.

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Disclosure: Interactive Brokers

The analysis in this material is provided for information only and is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. To the extent that this material discusses general market activity, industry or sector trends or other broad-based economic or political conditions, it should not be construed as research or investment advice. To the extent that it includes references to specific securities, commodities, currencies, or other instruments, those references do not constitute a recommendation by IBKR to buy, sell or hold such investments. This material does not and is not intended to take into account the particular financial conditions, investment objectives or requirements of individual customers. Before acting on this material, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and, as necessary, seek professional advice.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Interactive Brokers, its affiliates, or its employees.

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