Niels,

I am not speaking from experience but only observation so please keep that in mind when weighing my post...

Using a TB setup you have a situation where a computer must be setup to receive the signal, communicate with TB and then for TB to communicate with Interactive Brokers.

In the above scenario there are thousands of possible parameters to consider. What is the ISP quality? Computer setup? DLL versions? What else is running on that PC? etc...

It is in my mind a similiar situation to writing or purchasing a piece of software. It works fine on your PC or at Microsoft but how do you account for all the parameters on my PC or yours?

One advantage of the fx-auto platform is it is server based and therefore those parameters are greatly reduced.

Someone else with maybe a little more hands on experience want to chime in here and feel free to correct me?

Niels,

It's only natural that the questions posted are for technical issues, otherwise why post? Most people don't consider posting things like "I had no problems today, and for that matter it's been fine all week", I mean: what purpose would that serve for the poster?

I'm fairly sure most folks who don't have any problems probably don't even monitor this board. That said there are regulars here and their contribution and comments are much appreciated.

I would say that 'problem free' depends a lot on your expectations. Some may find that the fact that IB shut down their servers every night for a few minutes (but they don't tell you exactly when anymore) is a major issue, while others feel it's just an annoyance. Even if you buy a fancy car it won't be problem free forever; I once owned an expensive car that had a nasty software bug: the windows wouldn't close under certain conditions. Imagine how much fun that is in a car wash!

One thing is for sure: we've been working very hard for over 15 months to minimize the number of things that can go wrong. The fact remains that the markets are unstable, brokers introduce new features, etc.

Hope it helps,

Francis

Niels,
There are two problems I experienced trying to autotrade forex systems, and any system that uses limit orders. For forex the price quotes used by C2 and by my broker could differ enough that C2 would show a fill on an order that I would not get filled on in my real account (or vice versa). If this happens (and it was common) then you are out of synch with the C2 system and have to manually adjust your positions. This was true on the original entry positions as well as any stop orders placed to protect (or take profits on) the position. So it was necessary to constantly watch things. Threre is supposed to be a much anticipated improvement to the way C2 manages forex quotes that should improve this situation greatly, so hopefully when that is implemented trading forex systems (especially those that use limit orders) will be much more reliable.

The other problem with autotrading is with some (nonforex) systems that use limit orders. For some reason that evidently no one knows the answer to (yet) your real account can get out of synch with C2 and you'll end up with open postions in your account when the C2 system shows all trades closed. This is not too common (maybe 1-2 instances a week for a system that enters many orders during a single day) but it is enough that you have to watch your positions regularly to make sure you are in synch with the C2 system vendor and don't have unexpected open positions.

I use autotrading and it is very handy, and works probably 95+% of the time for the particular systems I have traded. But the other 5% is enough to force you to keep a close eye on things. As Francis said, both he and MK (the C2 guru) are constantly working to improve things and stomp out all the system bugs, and things are always getting better. But you don't want to have a lot of highly leveraged positions in your real account and go on vacation expecting autotrading to work "perfectly" as you put it.
Randy

Hi all,

thanks for fast and good feed back.

As I understand the replies, this system is not (yet) good enough to
use with peace in mind, unless watching the system on a daily basis - and
then I might as well trade my self or hire a broker to do it....as I see it.
Thanks again.

I have tried forex trading using TB and IB and for me the risks were too great. Apart from the risk that your PC and ISP may go down or that you may have a power cut the others were too great. Trades were missed because C2 thought they had already been filed ( a feed probelem) others weren't closed out and left running -again because of the feed issue possibly.

MK is working on the feed issue which will hoepfully replace the dodgy Barclays one. IB is not the best forex brokers and I was getting huge slippage with some overnight trades as were others -not experienced with other brokers.

What concerns me is that this should still be very much be in the 'beta test' mode with appropiate warnings given to subscribers as the whole process of setting up with brokers, C2 and TB is an expensive one both in time and money. It does C2's reputation no good at all to offer a service which at best can work 90 -95% of the time -the other 5% can be incredibly costly.

I have been following another trade execution service which doesn't need a autotrade 'forum' because they don't have any problems!

If the solution to this means outsourcing , using new feeds, trade execution platforms and brokers then so be it ..