Allow me to have some additions (with my regards to Elvira) :
1
Apparently it is so that in Australia you can’t use real time data with PRT from the US markets. This is a shame, but unrelated to autotrading. Well, sort of; it *is* related when you’d know that AutoTrading can for obvious reasons only be done with real time data. Read : when I would try to start an AutoTrading system on a market/instrument I don’t have a real time subscription for, I can’t create that system.
Additionally, if I don’t have a real time subscription to IBKR’s data (like you can see it in TWS in yellow-ish lines) I still can (Auto)Trade that in PRT – if I only have the real time subscription with PRT.
2
The crucial part which only few might understand is the API you work with; what happens with the API is that actually TWS is doing the trading work for you – not PRT. This is why you need to have both open (unless something has changed since I was beta tester for the API). Now :
The essential difference between the normal operation and the operation with the API, is that the normal operation occurs “server side”. This is by no means related to #1 above;
The ProOrder system runs server side and never on your API based platform, unless you created C++ etc. program code to control the IBKR-API yourself. Then you’d have your PC running and if you like on another PC in your network TWS receiving your API “calls”. And oh, to make it confusing, PRT does the same, but only for your manual trades (envision that PRT has this C++ code in its kernel – which runs on your PC).
It is the ProOrder system running server side, which will make it impossible to have AutoTrading running, for those using the API.
#1 theoretically can change, but it is not likely. The reasons are beyond my full knowledge, but some IBKR users from Europe and especially the UK, may recall the temporary transition from London to Luxembourgh. Only special customers were allowed to trade Forex from Luxembourgh – others just could not any more. This is all related to the supporting banks behind everything.
Then things got settled, except for one major change : Forex became CFDs for PRT-IB. Not that this mattered and not that anyone could notice (no chance in price levels whatsoever – I could compare because I had both direct and CFD at the time) but meanwhile this was a necessity because else PRT was not allowed to operate even in Europe.
So this is how it will be unlikely that #1 changes.
#2 will not change by my kind of guarantee. The technical means PRT applies is too embedded to ever change that. This is to be read as : As long as you work with the API you will never be able to Autotrade with PRT.
There is a solution : Move house.
Before you think that a VPN is the solution – only when very thoroughly set up, which includes an illegal passport from Europe, that can be done.
Thus that can’t be done either. 🙁
What I can imagine is an “upside down” kind of technical VPN. With this I am now not referring to a VPN which may mask your real location, but one which expands your local network to elsewhere. Example :
I work from home with PRT. But I also work from the office with PRT (don’t tell the colleagues). From home I can also work on the office PCs. This goes over the VPN. I use RDC (Remote Desktop Control) and do 100% everything from home. I can also start PRT on the office PC … Now :
I see no reason why this office PC can’t be in Australia. No wait, I can’t see a reason why your office PC can’t be in my office in Holland. Now you can work with PRT server-side …
I will let you know when the facility is open. 😉
But it won’t solve #1.
