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DICTIONARY
FEEDBACK

The Interactive Brokers (IB) Edition of Investor/RT operates in conjunction with IB supplied software known as the Trader Workstation (TWS). TWS is a Java application that runs both on MS Windows and Macintosh OS X. Thus the IB Edition of Investor/RT is available to both Windows and Macintosh users.

Investor/RT connects to TWS when you issue the Start Feed command. The IB user may setup Investor/RT to connect automatically at startup by checking the appropriate check box in Setup: Preferences: Data feed. Up to 100 ticker symbols may be monitored real-time via the Investor/RT - IB connection. IB/TWS provides historical intra-day data upon demand for the last 24 hours for backfilling intra-day charts. Historical backfill can be invoked automatically when you open a chart if you have the Automatic Download option turned on (see Setup: Preferences: Charts: General), or you can request historical intra-day data by clicking the data download button located at the lower right corner of traditional chart windows. The Data Download window, opened from its main toolbar button or from the Control Menu (Control: Data Management: Download), can be used to request backfill on individual ticker symbols or for all symbols in some Investor/RT defined quotepage.

If you have not already setup the TWS software to accept "socket clients" you must do this before Investor/RT can connect to TWS. In the TWS software, there is a menu named Configure. Click Configure and choose API. In the API submenu, make sure that "Enable ActiveX & Socket Clients" is checkmarked. Also, if you use the "Trusted IP Addresses" menu, you can setup "127.0.0.1" as a trusted IP address. This will enable Investor/RT to connect to TWS without a TWS prompting message to okay the connection.

The IB Edition of Investor/RT provides integrated support for longer term historical downloading from DTN Market Access. Long term daily, weekly, monthly historical data requests are routed automatically to DTN servers. Intra-day backfills from charts are routed to IB/TWS. The Data Download window can be used to retrieve intra-day data (minute bars, tick data etc.) for the past 120 calendar data from DTN Market Access. Downloads may be initiated on specific ticker symbols or on all the symbols in a user selected quotepage. DTN Market Access is a subscription data service of DTN. No sign up with DTN is required, however, as this service is included with the IB Edition of Investor/RT. When setting up ticker symbols for realtime monitoring over the IB/TWS connection, you may specify an "Alias Ticker" that will be used whenever requests are made to DTN servers.

Ticker symbols setup in Investor/RT must be what IB calls "local symbols". It is important that each ticker symbol be setup using the correct security type and exchange. For stocks, Investor/RT has an exchange code of SMART which corresponds to the IB required exchange code for equities. The AUTO (automatic) exchange code, the default, may also be used for stocks and indexes. For futures and options, use the actual exchange code. In the Setup: Instruments window, the exchange code setup is called the "Override Requested Exchange" setting. Check the box and pick the exchange code you wish to use for the ticker symbol. This setup is located in the Advanced setup area of the Setup: Instruments window. You will have to click on the "Advanced" disclosure triangle in the upper left of the setup window to access the exchange code menu.

The IB Edition of Investor/RT has built-in support for Dial/Data if you wish to use this end-of-day historical service for downloading daily historical data. IB users who have a data service account with eSignal, DTN.IQ, myTrack, or Quote.com may utilize these services after market hours to download historical data of any periodicity. This is accomplished using the Reconfigure command in the Investor/RT File Menu to switch Investor/RT to the alternate data service. After downloading historical data, use Reconfigure again to switch back to the IB feed. Investor/RT also offers built-in support for retrieving daily, weekly, and monthly historical data from the Yahoo Finance web site.

Investor/RT can accumulate as many days of intra-day data as you wish using the IB supplied or DTN supplied historical data. Go to Setup: Preferences: Historical and set the number of days of intra-day data you would like Investor/RT to maintain for you for each symbol you track. Thus intra-day historical database will grow day by day even beyond the 120 calendar days provided by DTN Market Access. This happens automatically if you have Investor/RT running for the entire trading session continuously. Otherwise, you should download (backfill) your charts at the end of each trading session so this data will be archived. This data management function can be automated using a schedule. See Setup: Schedules.

Investor/RT does not, at present, support trade order entry to the IB TWS, however, Investor/RT does operate in concert with both NinjaTrader and AutoTrader software to accomplish Investor/RT initiated trades through these intermediaries. AutoTrader is available for both MS Windows and Macintosh OS X platforms, while NinjaTrader operates exclusively under MS Windows.