3rd Party Front Ends for InteractiveBrokers

[Garry 10]

I have been trading for about 6 months and have decided to lower my transactions costs and move my account to IB. However, I have seen their trading platform and it seems a little cumbersome. They list several software partners on their website, but after a call to their IT department they don't want to offer recommendations on any of them. Can someone using a different front end to trade on the IB backend tell me about their experiences. I scalp and need quick in and out (flat) buttons that don't have a lot of technical issues interacting with the IB backend. Thanks for your help.

 

Garry

[Joe.Frankie 10]

Gary,

IB's TWS can be intimidating as it has so many parts, most of which you'll probably never want to use.

 

For scalping the Book Trader application is no doubt the best as it was designed for scalping.

As always, it is a good idea to use a demo account to test anything new before comiting real money.

 

An alternative to Book Trader is "Button Trader" which is a third party front end.

It is an excellent product. Very flexible - the developer's support is amazing.

Again, this product was designed primarily for scalping. They offer a 30 day free (simulation) trial; that is, the trial works with your real funded IB account but does not actually submit orders. The developer maintains their simulated trading is more realistic than IB's. For better or worse, ButtonTrader works ONLY with IB's TWS.

 

I've used both Book Trader and Button Trader. I like them both and typically re-subscribe to Button trader for a month or two at a time when I want to try something that I cannot do (easily) thru Book Trader.

 

Good Luck,

S

[Ants88 10]

http://www.quotetracker.com works and is free for two days history, $60 a year for the max of 10 days history. The charts and entry are better than IB.

[ninjatrader 10]

You can also check out http://www.ninjatrader.com

[BlowFish 10]

Brackettrader is free and not bad for a simple no frills ladder/dom entry. For a few bucks ($100??) you can buy a lifetime licence which allows you to change alert sounds and add extra instruments. (The free version just supports common ones)

 

Edit: be interested to hear from anyone thats used esignals free product? I think its called quotetrader and is ad supported.

[JEHs 10]

I use Brackettrader too. Very simple and easy to set up strategies for multiple targets and moving your stop automatically as targets are hit etc. Very simple.

It is free, but you will want to register, ($100), to be able to change sounds, etc. Otherwise they have an annoying buzzer sound when trades a executed or stops/profits are hit. But at least you can try it for free.

 

JH

[Kiwi 16]

I've used all of the front ends here.

 

I ended up with ZeroLineTrader because it was flexible and powerful like Ninja (both better than bracket) and quite cheap.

 

Recently I've dropped zlt as well because I'm trading directly from my charts instead. My charting/trading is Sierra Chart.

[pooch 10]

I am an IB user that oftens scalps, and am planning to switch because:

1. IB does not have real time Time & Sales (to guage actual current buying/selling intensity)

2. IB's Market Depth and therefore the Bid/Ask sizes in BookTrader have not been working correctly for almost three months (which I use to guage potential buying/selling interest at key support levels, despite MM games).

 

IB's customer support was downright rude when I tried to tell them of the missing bid/ask sizes in BookTrader. After 4 weeks of phone calls, I finally posted to EliteTrader which got IB to acknowledge the problem. That was over a month ago, and the problem is still not fixed. Apparently BookTrader is not used by many (a surprise to me) so I think they have given fixing this their lowest priority. I always thought of IB as a top broker but their lack of interest in fixing this after THREE MONTHS amazes me. Sure, it may not be used by many, but if the feature is there, it should work.

 

But I will admit that for the active trader, IB's Buttons and/or HotKeys give you easy to use instant, one-click entry with bracket orders functionality. But be careful of new TWS releases, I've had to reinstall older versions three times in the last 6 months. Most recently they tried to implement multitple target exits and it was full of bugs.

 

So I'm now in search of a broker with the same HotKey / Button features as IB, but with real time Time & Sales, and a Dome (BookTrader) order entry system that accurately displays market depth. With IB's market depth data not working, a 3rd party front end will not help.

[Ants88 10]

Yes, I have to agree with Pooch. I have traded with IB for 8 years and the TWS is updated or improved, then fails on next update.

 

The BookTrader is very dangerous when buggy. If you click in the Bid field to place a limit buy order, BookTrader did not show the order active. Even when the market hit the Bid, BookTrader did not show.

 

But the main TWS window showed I was long. I called IB and they said they were working on it.

 

I am looking around for a other broker due to the buggy software and ES margin at $6188 intraday.