How do I setup a forex instrument with IB and IDEALPRO exchange?

When using Interactive Brokers ( IB ) with Investor/RT, there is a simple setup and chart backfill for currency pairs, e.g. EUR.USD, JPY.USD, etc. When adding such instruments via the Setup: Instruments window. choose Forex as the security type. Investor/RT automatically sets up the Underlying Symbol and the Currency for the instrument by extracting this information from the ticker symbol, e.g. the ticker EUR.USD results in EUR as Underlying and USD as currency. In the IB version of Investor/RT it is important to specify the requested exchange (override exchange) in Setup: Instruments as well, typically IDEALPRO or IDEAL for Forex instruments. Intra-day data for Forex instruments having exchange IDEALPRO can be downloaded directly from IB.

You may also enter new ticker symbols directly into a quotepage. When configured for IB, Investor/RT will recognize any ticker symbol of the form XXX.YYY as a Forex (security type) instrument with XXX being the underlying symbol and YYY being the currency. Such tickers are setup with security type Forex and exchange IDEALPRO. If you wish to specify some other exchange you may enter Forex symbols into the ticker cell of a quotepage using the format XXX.YYY:EXCH:SESS where EXCH represents an alphabetic exchange name and SESS represents the numeric session id. For example, you may enter JPY.USD:IDEAL:33 into a new row in a quotepage and Investor/RT will define a new Forex instrument with underlying symbol JPY and currency USD; IDEAL will be setup as the override (requested) exchange and 33 will be the new instrument's session.

In order for Investor/RT to receive quotes on currency pairs from IB/TWS, the most crucial parts of the instrument setup are the Security Type, Underlying Symbol, Currency and Requested Exchange. It is recommended that you use the format XXX.YYY for all Forex ticker symbol so that Investor/RT automatically sets up the underlying and currency when you add the symbol. To troubleshoot your setup when data is not forthcoming from IB/TWS, add the four crucial data columns to a quotepage so you may view and edit them if necessary. Also, check the message log (File: Open: Message Log) for error messages when Investor/RT connects to TWS. If the ticker symbol setup is in error a message to that affect will appear in the log.