Positive order ID numbers changing to negative order ID numbers

IBController
1

Hello,

I've recently (problem first noticed on 3 September 2020) had a problem with previous API orders (that had positive order ID numbers) changing to negative order ID numbers. Previously I only saw these negative order ID numbers when I placed an order manually. Then in IBController I would see the manually placed order with an order ID number that was negative. Positive numbers for any API orders placed with Amibroker and IB Controller and negative order ID numbers for anything placed manually. Fairly simple, so even an idiot like me could understand it.

Essentially when trading a momentum long rotational system, I would use a STP SELL order on a long position (to sell at $0.01) as a kind of marker, so that I could place the STP SELL order, record the orderID number and use this order ID number to track whether I had a position in this stock. I’m sure this a terribly ugly and stupid way to do it, but I coded it like this years ago when I was learning Amibroker and it has sufficed for me to run my system. I placed this marker order using AB and IBController, so it was assigned a positive order ID number. No matter how much time went on, this order ID number would stay the same. I would run a maintenance code every so often that would modify the order, since the orders expire roughly every 6 months. Even modifying the order, the order ID number would stay the same, and I could always track this position easily. Things worked smoothly.

That is until earlier this month. I noticed that when I logged on again and connected IBController, all these orders (that were once positive order ID numbers) were now negative, almost as if they had been placed manually, not through auto-trading. When I modified these orders using the maintenance code, the order ID numbers had changed from positive numbers to different negative numbers. Then after the next trading session, these negative numbers had been changed to a different negative number. It’s almost as if the order is being deleted and manually replaced by a new identical order, and given a new order ID number which is negative.

Has anyone else noticed something like this happening recently? Is it something I should be talking to Interactive Brokers directly about?

I apologize for my clumsy way of trying to explain the situation, please feel free to hit me with any questions if I can make the issue clearer.

Thanks all.

2

You should ask IB about that because IBController does not touch order IDs.

3

Thank you for the clarification, that makes sense that it is an IB issue. With further looking into it, I think that when IB removed one of these orders due to a corporate action, some how all the other API orders got corrupted and are now not only seen as manual orders (negative order IDs) but somehow also keep changing orderID number.

I've called IB, but I actually think that continuing to liaise with them to solve the problem might take much more time and effort than just fixing the problem myself. If I write an afl code that will use IBController to delete all these orders and place a duplicate API order, I hope this may solve the problem.

Thanks for the feedback.