IBKR TWS displaying a double calendar as 2 separate trades instead of 1 PnL

Olufemi

Member
So i noticed something in TWS today. i have an SPX call calendar spread on and adjusted it by adding another SPX put calendar to it ( same expiration for both) . in my analytical software i see both calendars as one PnL but it seems TWS has split them into two different SPX calendar trades. This isnt what i expected as i want to keep them as one trade and close them all at once based on my desired PnL target. Is their a way to merge both trades and keep only one PnL line which ideally should be the same as what's in Optionnet Explorer? Thanks

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I have not seen TWS handle double calendars differently than what you showed , just my experience e
 
I have not seen TWS handle double calendars differently than what you showed , just my experience e
its a bit annoying as i 'm doing some Dan Sheridan style calendar income trades and closing the trade based on the combined PnL. Seeing them as 2 different trades makes things difficult to judge when best to take the whole thing off.
 
I am just trying to understand what the problem is since I don't have a IBKR account
What is ReversecalP ? is that the put calendar ? Why is it called reverse ?
I am not sure if TWS has the capability but you would need a custom grouping in order to combine them into one
I believe Etrade has that but I rarely use it
As far as closing the trade that may be more difficult to get it filled as a double calendar unless you give up a lot on the price
as each strike and expiration is changing at different times and amounts
 
I am just trying to understand what the problem is since I don't have a IBKR account
What is ReversecalP ? is that the put calendar ? Why is it called reverse ?
I am not sure if TWS has the capability but you would need a custom grouping in order to combine them into one
I believe Etrade has that but I rarely use it
As far as closing the trade that may be more difficult to get it filled as a double calendar unless you give up a lot on the price
as each strike and expiration is changing at different times and amounts
good question on reversalCalP... it started out as a 2 contract Put Calendar then when i placed a trade to close one of them, what it left was a reversalCalP. i then used the closed calendar to create the call calendar at a different strike ..not really feeling this IBKR right now
 
What is the 8 at the end of the line ?
I thought maybe that was the number of contracts but it sounds like it's not

From the earlier explanation it sounded like you had the call first and than added the put as an adjustment which would make more sense as you would start with the 4380 which was near the money if you put the trade on today and than added the put adjustment at 4470 as SPX went up a lot today
 
What is the 8 at the end of the line ?
I thought maybe that was the number of contracts but it sounds like it's not

From the earlier explanation it sounded like you had the call first and than added the put as an adjustment which would make more sense as you would start with the 4380 which was near the money if you put the trade on today and than added the put adjustment at 4470 as SPX went up a lot today
8 is the number of days left .. they expire on the 22nd. your assumption is correct... i started with 2 lots of the 4380 C, sold one of them and bought a 4470 P calendar.. so ended up with one lot of each...
 
Thanks for clarifying

I have a question in general about ONE and calendars theta values
When you look at the a calendar on the risk graph on ONE and look at the theta value and p/l and increase the days one at a time does the p/l value correspond approximately to the theta value ?
In other words let's say the theta is 75 and you advance the date by one is the p/l close to 75 on the first day ?

Tos has a problem with this so I was just wondering if ONE has the same problem or not
 
So i noticed something in TWS today. i have an SPX call calendar spread on and adjusted it by adding another SPX put calendar to it ( same expiration for both) . in my analytical software i see both calendars as one PnL but it seems TWS has split them into two different SPX calendar trades. This isnt what i expected as i want to keep them as one trade and close them all at once based on my desired PnL target. Is their a way to merge both trades and keep only one PnL line which ideally should be the same as what's in Optionnet Explorer? Thanks

View attachment 3312
its a bit annoying as i 'm doing some Dan Sheridan style calendar income trades and closing the trade based on the combined PnL. Seeing them as 2 different trades makes things difficult to judge when best to take the whole
its a bit annoying as i 'm doing some Dan Sheridan style calendar income trades and closing the trade based on the combined PnL. Seeing them as 2 different trades makes things difficult to judge when best to take the whole thing off.

What were you using to evaluate ? You could use the what if scenario created to create a P&L of the two spreads , it’s akin to doing a trade calculator
 
Thanks for clarifying

I have a question in general about ONE and calendars theta values
When you look at the a calendar on the risk graph on ONE and look at the theta value and p/l and increase the days one at a time does the p/l value correspond approximately to the theta value ?
In other words let's say the theta is 75 and you advance the date by one is the p/l close to 75 on the first day ?

Tos has a problem with this so I was just wondering if ONE has the same problem or not
not sure but will check it out today
 
So i noticed something in TWS today. i have an SPX call calendar spread on and adjusted it by adding another SPX put calendar to it ( same expiration for both) . in my analytical software i see both calendars as one PnL but it seems TWS has split them into two different SPX calendar trades. This isnt what i expected as i want to keep them as one trade and close them all at once based on my desired PnL target. Is their a way to merge both trades and keep only one PnL line which ideally should be the same as what's in Optionnet Explorer? Thanks

View attachment 3312
IB does not have the functionality to combine trades & show the total P&L , like you can do in ONE. Even TOS doesn't have this functionality, once you start opening & closing trades. This is why traders use spreadsheets or ONE to track trades. Look at the calendars independently, which one is losing & which one is profitable, this will match what's in ONE. I trade lots of calendars & diagonals in IB using ONE to track and the P&L matches.
 
IB does not have the functionality to combine trades & show the total P&L , like you can do in ONE. Even TOS doesn't have this functionality, once you start opening & closing trades. This is why traders use spreadsheets or ONE to track trades. Look at the calendars independently, which one is losing & which one is profitable, this will match what's in ONE. I trade lots of calendars & diagonals in IB using ONE to track and the P&L matches.
Thanks @vega4mike . Would love to pick your brains a bit on how you use IB and ONE. Do you have to update commissions in ONE after each trade is filled in IBKR ? Is their anything i need to look out for to get both platforms to be as close as possible numbers wise? Have you come across ReverseCal in IBKR? Is that just another fancy name for a Calendar? Does your ONE display updated EOD data at the end of each trading day? mine doesnt. i had to wait till this morning to see what the risk graph looked like for yesterdays close. Sorry for all my questions.. just happy to meet someone who uses IBKR and ONE like me
 
Do you have to update commissions in ONE after each trade is filled in IBKR ?- Unfortunately yes, just so I know what my true P&L is.

Is their anything i need to look out for to get both platforms to be as close as possible numbers wise? I tend to keep my trades separate in ONE, so that makes it easy for me to track the P&L of each trade. A double calendar is just 2 separate calendars, you know what you paid for them, ONE gives you the mid price of the calendars, which is what you will see in IB, albeit, you may have to give in a bit if you want to execute, so you may not get the exact mids.

Have you come across ReverseCal in IBKR? Is that just another fancy name for a Calendar?In IB if you buy the front month & sell the back month , IB will show the trade as a reverse calendar, so if you have a calendar in ONE and send it to IB, it will show up as a Reverse Calendar, confusing , I know, but that's IB. To avoid this confusion, when closing a calendar trade, don't send thru ONE, just execute directly in IB.

Does your ONE display updated EOD data at the end of each trading day? mine doesn't. ---Thats one of the drawbacks of ONE, no EOD until next day & if its Friday, have to wait till Monday.

IB not perfect, ONE not great, but we just have to try as best as possible to trade round these deficiencies. I'm sure there are much better systems available, but I can't afford them.

This one spings to mind https://www.silexx.com/

it ain't cheap.

Hope this helps.
 
Do you have to update commissions in ONE after each trade is filled in IBKR ?- Unfortunately yes, just so I know what my true P&L is.

Is their anything i need to look out for to get both platforms to be as close as possible numbers wise? I tend to keep my trades separate in ONE, so that makes it easy for me to track the P&L of each trade. A double calendar is just 2 separate calendars, you know what you paid for them, ONE gives you the mid price of the calendars, which is what you will see in IB, albeit, you may have to give in a bit if you want to execute, so you may not get the exact mids.

Have you come across ReverseCal in IBKR? Is that just another fancy name for a Calendar?In IB if you buy the front month & sell the back month , IB will show the trade as a reverse calendar, so if you have a calendar in ONE and send it to IB, it will show up as a Reverse Calendar, confusing , I know, but that's IB. To avoid this confusion, when closing a calendar trade, don't send thru ONE, just execute directly in IB.

Does your ONE display updated EOD data at the end of each trading day? mine doesn't. ---Thats one of the drawbacks of ONE, no EOD until next day & if its Friday, have to wait till Monday.

IB not perfect, ONE not great, but we just have to try as best as possible to trade round these deficiencies. I'm sure there are much better systems available, but I can't afford them.

This one spings to mind https://www.silexx.com/

it ain't cheap.

Hope this helps.
thanks so much for the detailed response.. on filling out commissions and prices, it can be a bit of a hassle, especially if you have multiple trades going through different exchanges ( they tend to have different prices and commissions). maybe i 'll just extract the trade from IBKR and upload to ONE instead? The Risk Navigator may also be useful ... hmm.. will check it out..in not sure if that can be done for live trades.. that may help. Good point on ReverseCal.. Will definitely close within TWS from now on. Thanks again for your very useful help!
 
IB does not have the functionality to combine trades & show the total P&L , like you can do in ONE. Even TOS doesn't have this functionality, once you start opening & closing trades. This is why traders use spreadsheets or ONE to track trades. Look at the calendars independently, which one is losing & which one is profitable, this will match what's in ONE. I trade lots of calendars & diagonals in IB using ONE to track and the P&L matches.

I think you can mimic this with the trade calculator / what if risk portfolios in IBKR but they are definitely not as clean as what I've seen in ONE>
 
I have been playing with Trader Oasis that uses Tradier Brokerage. Trader Oasis sits on top of Tradier's TradeHawk platform. It also is not cheap but I don't know how it compares in cost to ONE. traderoasis.com is the website. It does handle keeping track of the multileg cost basis in real time so you don't have to wait for ONE to get the next day's data.
 
Tracking time spreads is very doable for everybody familiar with Excel or any coding lang. Actually it is pretty simple. Problem is with proper tracking of orders and applying them to particular trades. This task has to be done manually thus is tedious and prone to errors task.
It is easy to 'manage' past trades, Things get very frustrating when you are in the middle of fast moving market and you relay on your p&l graphs to manage several open trades, especially if you are close to expiration. Tracking single or double calendar is straight forward but having 10 calendars and 10 rolls and couple multi-expiration positions is a task that requires a lot of prudence in designing and executing tracking program (if doable within a reason at all).

But.
Imo, tracking time spreads by t0 line is not the best way. This is how we've been 'trained' by relaying, or simply by looking, at Analytical Tab, OV or ONE. Tracking individual legs of time spread is more beneficial for trader (imo) although require 'some 'rewiring' thus some mental effort.
One of very popular misconceptions between traders is so called 'expiration line' of time spreads (calendar being a simple example). What people call 'expiration line of a calendar' is not expiration line at all. I think this "cal exp line' thing may be just a matter of habit or of adopting to existing 'standard' in popular trading talks but in practice can be quite harmful and (imo) is one of the main reasons people don't like time spreads.

Tracking p&l is another issue but similar concerns apply: it is fairly easy to do for past or long dated trades - not so easy for market changing minute by minute - unless one is trading single expiration trade with no/very_few adjustments.
What TOS dos is not ideal for many but is very reasonable approach for vast range of trading styles. With TOS tracking pl can be done but is... a tedious and prone to errors task.
Designing own pl tracking is more doable than time spreads. Some problem might be with automation but it can be done to accommodate any particular trader or trading style (vs universal, one-fit-all approach).
For couple years I've been using some code that does it for me. It is only for TOS (probably can be adopted for other platforms - I did not try). Actually I'm in the middle of applying some updated to the code and if there is interest I can show how I handle p&l tracking in semi-automated manner on my end. My method has limits though.

I'm interested in how other handle pl tracking. I know ONE, not much IB or other platforms. Still think pencil&paper is a decent method especially for detail oriented persons.
 
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