srf335

Wow, looks like they have a backlog. Now getting fill notifications for orders at prices that were a couple of cancel/replace's ago...

All appear to be back up now, but suspicious of orders getting through. Have a couple of "buys" I just walked up above the ask and still not getting filled.

Indeed, it definitely is a "devil you know" with brokerages in my experience.

Are you getting live data? App will open now, but no data.

Nothing material in the link, but word is getting out.... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-td-ameritrade-trading/td-ameritrade-trading-platform-thinkorswim-hit-by-systems-glitch-idUSKCN25E2A3 Not being able to resolve or roll back to stable in over a day is not a good sign. Really not looking forward to moving 4 accounts to another broker, but this may be the straw...

Really frustrating this morning, as normal ToS app is totally down now (stuck showing "downloading updates") and the web app is updating at a speed like I'm on an old '90s dial-up line... Seems this is a backend problem for them since affecting two methods of access, but curious if you are using a PC or Mac. I'm on Mac, and trying to rule out any issue on my end, thanks.

Same here. iOS works, and also their new web app at thinkorswim.com is working on PC (but whole new interface to learn).

Thanks for the feedback, and yes, it just came back up for me in past 2-3 minutes.

Yeah, doing the same now. Holy crap, it's like learning a whole new platform using the website - have never used for trading before - took 5 min just to figure out where my watchlists were... Quick question. I just recently started actively trading again after a 5-6 year pause when my work schedule didn't allow. I just picked up again with ToS which was where my capital was and what I had used in the past. I don't ever recall being offline for more than 5 minutes in the past. Is this outage today rare, or is it a more frequent occurrence these days? Thanks!

Answered my own question - definitely down right now: https://downdetector.com/status/td-ameritrade/

Looks like a ToS platform problem. I am able to login to TD Ameritrade account and see active data.

Are any other ToS users seeing their platform totally down right now? Just got kicked off and won't reload on desktop or mobile.

One potential catalyst for a price move is their upcoming developers conference (WWDC). It's June 10-14 this year. It's usually software-oriented news that gets announced at these conferences rather than device announcements. Doing a quick check over the past three years shows the stock price didn't move much around this event. That said, still good to be aware of it.

Chris, regarding your example in point #3 above. Are you routing these orders to a specific exchange with ToS? My understanding from discussing with TDA/ToS is that when selecting "Best" routing, they pick and place the order on what they determine to be the "best" exchange at the time they accept your order. Once placed, they leave the order on that exchange until it is either filled, cancelled or it expires. Unlike IB, they won't proactively move an order to another exchange once it is placed, even if it would fill on the other exchange (I explicitly asked about this scenario because of problems I was having getting fills). If true, it seems that could create the situation where a newer order gets filled at a lower price on a different exchange because the older order is parked on an exchange with a higher bid/ask combo. I'm not familiar enough with trading rules/laws to know how this applies, so I am interested in your perspective. The last event that prompted me to talk in length with ToS was the fact that about 4 months ago I noticed >80% of the "Best" orders I was placing were being routed to ISE.

Anyone else have ToS live quotes go down this morning? Did a chat and they acknowledged the problem and had them back up in about 10 minutes. That said, still not getting index quotes (e.g. VIX, GVZ, RUT, RVX, etc...) and they say they are still working on them. Just trying to understand if it was an issue isolated to a few users or if it was systemwide. The reason I ask is that the frequency of interruptions/outages with ToS seems to be increasing over the past few months, today's incident being one of the quicker fixes. I like their platform a lot, but it is becoming more frustrating with issues like this, as well as some of the margin policies. So far, only one of the outages had a material impact on my ability to execute a trade. I've been thinking about moving to IB, but so far have ended up back at "the devil you know" each time I do the analysis.

Wayne, That's what I thought as well before digging in to this and getting a bit more familiar. The VIX, as we follow daily, is simply a calculated 30 day implied volatility for the SPX as of today expressed as a percentage. VIX options are based on a calculated 30 day implied volatility for the date of the option. So if you have a Feb/Apr VIX calendar, there are three "VIX" values involved: 1) the current VIX as of today, 2) the VIX future for the February expiration date, and 3) the VIX future for the April expiration date. The three different "VIX" values may not (and most likely will not) be the same. That means that you see today's VIX percentage as one number, another VIX percentage is used as the underlying for your February options, and yet another VIX percentage is used as the underlying for you April options. Quick, significant changes in today's VIX may have siginificantly different changes on the future VIX numbers for the two future dates (i.e. one may change much more significantly than the other, usually the front month). That's why this is a different beast than a normal calendar with stock based options.

Yeah, when I asked the guy how exactly VIX would ever get to zero, there was a long, silent pause. He then just played back that this was their policy and that it wasn't negotiable. I got the impression this wasn't the first time he'd had this discussion. Guy on the phone was decent and had a good understanding of options - got the sense he understood my argument but was playing back the ToS policy. I've been weighing the IB vs ToS decision for a while and do like that ToS answers the phones and are knowledgeable. May not always like the answers I get... I think (per the WSJ article) they got burned on VIX calendars in late 2008 when the market tanked and probably had some customers wipe out accounts and then some. Their reaction was a hard position on these calendars.

Just wanted to follow up on my original post about ToS margin requirements on VIX calendars. First off, I violated one of the hardest rules I've learned in my short time trading, fully understand the trade before you execute. Have a pretty good handle on stock derived options, but haven't traded many futures derived options or European style options, of which VIX is both. Have learned a bit more in the past day and this still looks like a good risk/reward trade that I would be comfortable executing. That said, I had a chance to talk to ToS at length this morning and they are hard and fast on treating a VIX calendar as two separate trades and requiring margin separately for each leg. Their position is that different month VIX option have different underlings which are calculated 30 day IV numbers on a specific date for each different month, unlike options on a stock where all months have the same underlying. Therefore they treat a VIX calendar as if you were creating one calendar with options from two different stocks. I get it technically and understand that in the case of a call calendar a very quick and large spike in the VIX could lose significantly because the underlying calculated IV for the back month (long) option may not increase nearly as much as the front month and you could have a huge loss. Plus, with calls, there is technically no ceiling as to how large the spike could be. However, it's hard for me to create a scenario where a put calendar with strikes near the VIX at it's current level could see a price differential between the short put and long put that could ever get near the actual strike price (which is what their margin requirement implies). ToS wouldn't (couldn't?) give me a credible scenario that would get there. In studying up I found an old article (below) that probably explains why ToS have this policy. I've also attached an explanation from OptionsHouse on why they have the same policy. Just thought I share with others what I found. Thanks. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123695294636919681.html http://www.optionshouse.com/blog/the-special-risks-with-vix-calendar-spreads/

Just got off the phone with ToS options suport. They're sticking to their guns and saying these are firm margin requirements based on the increased risk of trading VIX due to it's inherent volatility - it's not a mistake. Would be interested if any other ToS users would confirm if they are seeing similar requirements.

Executing this trade on ToS is requiring $1681 margin per spread, an order of maginitude greater than what you list with IB. Is this something specific ToS? I've never encountered such a large discrepancy. I've double checked my order ticket three times and bottom line is it will cost me $1700 buying power to have a chance at earning $25-30. That's a non-starter.

Chris, Assuming this trade is still centered fairly well, will you normally roll the short strangle on Thursday? Looks like about a $0.60 to 0.65 credit to roll at the same 41/44 strikes at the moment with only 0.11 left on the current strangle to gain. If you "re-centered" the short strangle at 42/45 the credit to roll drops to around $0.50 - 0.55.

Definitely don't have a good feeling about this turn of events - have open positions in ADM, BIDU, MA and RL. Hope everyone on the eastern seaboard weathers this storm OK. That said, looks like we're going to need some luck to not take a significant hit here.

Chris, your long strangle is fairly delta positive. Is this because of the nature of VXX to decline over time all other things being equal?

PCLN 550/570 strangle mid at $23+ at the open. This would definitely have been a cake and ice cream trade. Will have to add this to the list for next Q.

Didn't enter this trade - got too expensive. Interesting to watch the IV spike on PCLN as EXPE IV dropped all day. I was thinking of this as a gamma play to enter at the end of the day and catch a move if EXPE moves tomorrow. Looks like this is a popular sympathy trade and I should have been thinking of this as an IV play and entered earlier. Mid on the NOV1 550/570 strangle was at $15.90 (or better) this morning and was at $18.20 at the close. The 555/575 was even better as the price moved down from around 565 earlier in the day - from $15.60 to $18.65 (almost 20% gain). The stock price didn't move a whole lot today. This might be an anomaly, but I will definitely spend more time looking for sympathy trade candidates.