Why is Sell Bid and Buy Ask greyed out for ChartTrader when trading forex with IB?

[androiduser14916]

Why is Sell Bid and Buy Ask greyed out for ChartTrader when trading forex with IB?

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hello. Thanks for the post.

These buttons are not available while trading forex pairs because you must always buy at the bid and sell at the ask price in forex. The spread goes to the broker.

Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.

[androiduser14916]

Do you realise that if you buy at the bid and sell the ask you are the market maker. You going to earn a lot of $$$
Seriously this isn't the reason.

[androiduser14916]

If you are crossing the spread, you buy at the ask and sell at the bid

[NinjaTrader_PatrickH]

Hello androiduser14916,

Thank you for your response.

It is as simple as you can't submit a limit order to Buy at or above the Ask and you can't submit a limit order to sell at or below the Bid price.

Buy Bid submits a Buy limit order at the Bid price. Sell Ask submits a limit order to the Ask price.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

[androiduser14916]

ninjatrader 7 allows you to buy ask for forex
also a coded strategy allows one to buy ask for forex too in NT8

In fact issuing limit orders to buy at ask prevents excess slippage during fast market movements. Why is it allowed for equities but not forex? It doesn't make sense at all

[NinjaTrader_PatrickH]

Hello androiduser14916,

Thank you for your response.

This is a specific restriction to Forex due to the spread of the instruments. There is no valid means to submit a Limit Order at the Ask price on Forex it would be rejected.

The Buy at Ask and Sell at Bid options are available for Futures and Equities trading as the spread would not be large enough to invalidate the order and the last price flucates between to the Ask and Bid prices. Consider the fact that Forex does not have a Last traded price.

Attached is a screenshot showing the NinjaTrader 8 and NinjaTrader 7 Chart Traders not displaying the Buy Ask or Sell Bid options when viewing Forex instruments on a Forex datafeed.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

[androiduser14916]

Thanks for the reply. If the broker supports the greyed out functionality, can we ask the developer how to reenable it say using some code and script?

Thanks again.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickH]

Hello androiduser14916,

Thank you for your response.

No means to enable this through code. This was removed to ensure the orders getting rejected due to being submitted on the wrong side were reduced.

Please let me know if you have any questions.