U/L Price Based Option Buy Order Limitations


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I use the following strategy for my Buy order:
When the underlying (LAST) goes above or below a certain price point (hard-coded at 31.9 for this example), the buy trigger is activated and it is supposed to buy the option strike (call or put) that I selected at Mark.

I place these orders the night before since I work during open market hours. However, if you look at the image, on market Open (the price went above 31.9 right at the Open), I only got a partial fill at $3.5. This fill was 1:50 into the market open. There are 2 other fills that happened at that price, but I never got my positions filled at $3.5. There were fills at even lower price that I never got. And since Mark based values get an actual value ($3.5, in this case) when triggered, the rest of the position never got its fill since the underlying moved in my direction.

Any suggestion on how to make this underlying price based trigger more ‘forgiving’ so that I could have gotten a fill at say, $3.55?

Any idea why my trades did not get the best fills? I am assuming this is because there are other bigger players with lower latencies than TOS that can flood the market orders quicker?

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Posted by (Questions: 1, Answers: 1)
Asked on February 4, 2021 8:38 am
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Private answer

It is not possible to provide a solution because you did not include the code used for your Conditional Orders nor did you include a screenshot showing how your Conditional Order is setup.

Edit: After requesting more details the author of this post included screenshots to show how the Conditional Order was setup.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that you have your order type set to LIMIT. Limit order ensure a price IF executed, but they do not ensure an execution. So you are not assured to get a fill when a limit order is sent to market. And the price may be better then the limit price you entered, but not worse. A MARKET order will ensure an execution, but it will not ensure a price. So if you use a Market order everyone of your orders should fill, but the price will be at the current bid or ask (depending whether the order is a buy or sell). In the example screenshot your order is set to buy the call at limit price of 2.18 or better.If the price of that option contact is higher when this order is sent to market it will not execute until and unless the price of that option falls to 2.18 or lower. By referencing the MARK price type in your order you are merely telling the code which price type to use for triggering the order. It will have zero impact on the limit price you entered in the previous steps of setting up the order.

That's about all I have to say on the topic. If this information does not help you will need to take this up with the trade desk at TD Ameritrade.

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Posted by (Questions: 37, Answers: 4079)
Answered on February 4, 2021 1:21 pm
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Apologies! I updated the question with a screenshot.
( at February 5, 2021 8:46 am)
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Thanks. I have updated my answer to provide my thoughts on the topic. I really don't have much to offer. I specialize in writing custom code solutions. The only teaching I do for the Conditional Orders has to do with custom study solutions. And for that I recommend everyone use market orders to ensure the order executes immediately as soon as it is sent to market.
( at February 5, 2021 10:55 am)