Integrated Trading - Interactive Brokers

In the global configurator, click on the plus sign (+) next to API and select Settings. under settings, add a check mark next to Enable Active X and Socket Clients and click ok.



Configure the Interactive Brokers connection

click Trade and select Broker Manager. 



Click the add icon (+ sign).

  

select Interactive Brokers from the broker dropdown list. 

  

Click ok to add interactive brokers to the broker list.

  

Interactive Broker should now appear in the broker list.  Click the Connect icon to establish communication between eSignal and TWS.

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Once the Interactive Brokers plug-in establishes a connection, the lightning bolt icon will turn green and the message tab will also show "connected".

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Symbol Mapping 
to solve the symbol differences between eSignal and Interactive Brokers, we've implemented a symbol dictionary. the symbol dictionary will automatically associate a significant number of the eSignal symbols with those used by Interactive Brokers. however, there will be times when an eSignal symbol will need to be manually mapped to interactive brokers. to manually map symbols do the following. 

On the Dictionary & Order Defaults tab in the broker manager window, click Add.



Enter the eSignal symbol you would like mapped (ES #F) and click Lookup.



In the underlying field of the contract lookup window, enter only the underlying symbol (es), select the Instrument type, and Exchange. click Lookup.




from the list of results, select the Interactive Broker symbol you want to associate with the eSignal symbol.

Back in the Edit Symbol window, the information for the Interactive Brokers symbol has now been populated in Symbol ID. Check the information and confirm that it is correct.  NOTE: In some cases, the eSignal symbol might be modified to match Interactive Brokers symbol or expiration date. You'll want to check this closely and make any changes needed prior to clicking Accept. 

If all the information is correct, click Accept.  this will add the symbol to the symbol dictionary window and make it available for trading. for instructions on mapping currency symbols for Interactive Broker, click here.



Order Defaults
Pre-set order defaults allow users to assign things like quantity, and the type of order (i.e., market, limit or stop) in advanced. users can set defaults for an asset class such as stocks and futures or for an individual symbol (YHOO).

To set the order default, select the Dictionary & Order Defaults tab on the broker manager window (trade, broker manager, dictionary & order defaults) highlight either the asset class or an individual symbol (YHOO is used for this example). click Order Default.





Set the order default using the option available from the dropdown menus. now when this stock (YHOO) is traded, the quantity and order type will be preset in the order ticket.



Removing Order Defaults
To remove order defaults, select the asset class or individual symbol that has the order default set and click Remove Defaults.



Order Confirmation
The order ticket is considered the confirmation before an order is executed. if you would like to disable the confirmation prompt, at the stop of eSignal click Trade and then Trade Settings.

Remove the check from the box for Confirm Order before Submitting.

The fastest and easiest way to map a symbol is to enter the symbol in a chart. the more commonly used symbols will automap to interactive brokers symbol id.  if the symbol does not automap, you'll receive the following message in the trade panel of the chart.



Clicking the link will activate the create new symbol window.  you will notice that the signal symbol has automatically populated the symbol field. so we will click the lookup button.

In the Symbol Look up window, you will enter the underlying currency symbol for Interactive Brokers. This symbol is going to match the symbol of the currency AUD.  (Note: there should be no spaces, Month or year codes in the Underlying symbol files).  From the Instrument Type drop down, we will select Futures.  In the Exchange dropdown, select the exchange that the future trades on. If you would like to see all the exchanges that the Australian dollar trades on, you would leave the exchange field blank.  But to filter out the unwanted exchange. we will select GLOBEX.  Click Lookup and wait for the result to populate. 

At bottom of the Contract look up are the results of your search.  Looking at the expiry date we will find and double click the contract that matches our eSignal Month and Year code (June 2012).

Back in the Create New Symbol window, the information for the Interactive Broker Symbol has now been populated. Check the information and confirm it is correct. In this case the eSignal symbol has been modified by Interactive Brokers.  So before clicking Accept, confirm the eSignal ID had not changed.  If all the information is correct, click Accept.  This will add the symbol to the symbol mapping window and make it available for trading.

Interactive Brokers - Failed to place order:
This part of the article discusses why a user would receive the error below and what steps should be taken to correct it. 

What this error means, is that an incorrect "Route" has been selected in the order ticket.

When will i see this error: most commonly seen when futures trades are routed in an exchange the instrument does not trade. 

Example – Gold (GC #F) is traded on the NYMEX, if the "Route" in the order ticket were set to the MIBSX it would be rejected because the Gold does not trade on MIBS 

How to correct the problem: either in the order ticket or order defaults set the "Route" to the proper exchanges. 

Here are the more comment instruments and their exchange:

This article provides instructions on how to integrate Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation (TWS) with eSignal using the Interactive Broker plug-in. 

Plug-in Configuration
eSignal Data in TWS
Troubleshooting and TWS Errors

Set-up Requirements:
1. An active subscription to eSignal.  
2. The latest version of eSignal. Click here to download and install eSignal.
3. An open and funded account with Interactive Brokers.
4. The latest version of Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation

By design, TWS had full control and any request that needed to be made by a 3P app would have to go through TWS, and TWS would then make the request to the servers.  When TWS would make each request, it would need to pull up the specific account in the portfolio to pass the number to the servers. This caused the Portfolio Tab of TWS to scroll through each of the users accounts as the requests were made. It made it difficult for some users to place trades through TWS because the accounts were constantly changing every 6 to 10 seconds.  Interactive Brokers has updated the servers to separate the requests, allowing 3P apps to go straight to the server for the needed information. 

 

 

This is where the message box comes in and what this means to you. By either selecting Yes or No, you decide whether TWS make the Account request or the 3P app. By selecting Yes, you're saying you want TWS to control the request and your Portfolio window will constantly scroll every few seconds. Or you can select No and everything is done by the 3P app behind the scenes and there's no scrolling of the accounts. Now to stop the message dialog from appearing, you can add a check mark to the box to "Remember my decision" before deciding yes or no.