Interactive Brokers’ TWS platform enhances BookTrader safeguards
The company has added a “Suppress duplicate events” feature, which combines multiple click actions into a single action.
Online trading major Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (IBKR) continues to perfect the functionalities of its trading platform TWS.
The latest (beta) version of the platform offers enhancements to BookTrade safeguards.
Occasionally the company has detected that when BookTrader is in “Armed” mode, multiple click actions in rapid succession occasionally occur, at a rate too fast to be under human control. That is why, the broker has added a safeguard to protect from this action in the form of a “Suppress duplicate events” feature, which is enabled by default and will combine these rapid actions (actions that occur within 1/2 second of each other) into a single action.
If desired, traders can disable this feature in Global Configuration>Trading Tools>BookTrader>Settings by unchecking the box. If this action suppression does occur, traders will receive a message that TWS has suppressed suspected erroneous duplicate action.
The recent additions to the TWS platform also include a new Mark Price Implied Volatility (IV) calibration method.
The broker explains that it has recently switched to a more precise Mark Price IV calibration method that provides a better and more comprehensive volatility surface. This results in improved model price and Greeks in TWS especially for deep in-the-money or far out-of-the-money options.
Traders can see the applied IV skew curve in the Implied Volatility Viewer – they just have to use the Search field in the Mosaic New Window drop-down to find the tool.
Let’s recall that, in April this year, Interactive Brokers bolstered its 3D Volatility Surface webtool. Traders can now view Implied Volatility in 3D using the 3D Volatility Surface webtool accessible from within the Implied Volatility Viewer. All they have to do is click the “3D” button to study the model volatility surface of contracts in 3D.
As a result, the platform displays the model surface together with individual option IV points. And traders can also compare the current surface with any historical value by plotting them together. The view can be rotated and zoomed. If one expands the “Extra plot controls”, contour and value lines will be shown. Scaling can be manipulated using sliders.