IB TwS question

[Mikael]

I'm not used to trading on IB, can someone tell me why my short flies do not all say -10 on position? i am 100% sure i put on all short flies (in fact i called them and verified), but no one can tell me why some position says +10 and some says -10. what's the deal with that? it's very confusing! especially since I have to set GTC buy orders differently as well. attaching screenshot below.

 

thanks for the help!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2013 by Mikael

[Marco]

thats IB's odd logic of spreads.

 

a sell (or short position) of a positive premium (like on GOOG, NLFX) is the same as a buy (or long) of a spread with a negative premium (all the others on your screen shot).

if you want to see them all as short positions you have to create the spreads accordingly (with a positive premium, so when you create the spread enter the legs with the higher premiums as a buy (even if you then decide to sell the combo)

 

hope that makes sense

[Mikael]

thanks marco. so basically in the options trader for short flies i should do something like this? (using AAPL as an example)

 

buy 1 x 500 call

sell 2 x 505 call

buy 1 x 510 call

 

then i add it to quote panel

 

then i drag it to my spread sheet window

 

then i click on the bid to sell the spread

 

this should give me a short butterfly which says -10?

[Marco]

assuming above combo gives you a positive premium yes. And you can add spreads to your spread window (your screen shot) without going through the option trader first and you can do that after you traded them (so you can change these for the spreads above (delete the old spreads and reenter)

[Mikael]

wow thanks i figured it out finally. 

 

so you can basically type in the ticker, select option combos, then build up the combo as a long butterfly, then the existing trade actually show up as -10. then you can close it the normal way.

 

thanks! 

[Mikael]

this is so much simpler, never going to use option trader again, that screen is soooo confusing.