Trades are not being executed (Trade could not be submitted)
1. Status indicator in Dashboard: "Strikes" column
In the OptionsApp Dashboard, the "Strikes" column provides a quick overview of your trades' status. It shows not only the Strike or Strikes of an active trade, but also explains why a trade failed to execute.
2. Understanding the messages in the "Strikes" column
When a trade doesn't open, the status will be displayed in the "Strikes" column:
- Entry Condition not met: The defined entry criteria were not met at the scheduled time. The trade was therefore correctly not executed (set to CANCELED).
- Trade could not be submitted, see logs for more details: The trade couldn't be executed due to technical or configuration issues. Check the logs for more information.
3. Possible reasons for "Trade could not be submitted"
If a trade couldn't be executed, the following causes are possible:
- Strikes could not be found: The parameters in your Template (e.g. Delta, Premium, Offset) didn't result in a valid contract.
- Missing market data in TWS
Without current live data, strikes can't be determined or prices can't be validated. - Price outside the Price Range defined in TemplateOptionsApp couldn't find a contract within the allowed price limits.
- Conflict with existing OrdersOptionsApp won't open trades if the same contracts are already manually open (not registered in OptionsApp) or if the same contracts have opposing Close Orders active. This is because the broker doesn't allow simultaneous buy and sell orders on the same contract.
- Conflict with opposing Orders: If opening a trade would result in Close Orders that conflict with existing Orders, the trade won't be opened. This is because IB doesn't allow simultaneous buy and sell orders on the same contract.
- Margin usage too high: If the broker rejects the trade due to excessive margin usage, it can't be executed.
- Technical error state: For example, a connection problem with TWS, API issues, or a conflict with existing orders.
- Time window exceeded: Trigger/Execution-Time; Strike search too slow; System busy.
- TWS state (frozen/"No response"): A complete restart is the only solution here.
4. Accessing the log file
To identify the exact reason why a trade didn't execute, you can check the log file for that trade:
- In the Dashboard, click on the trade in the table to select it.
- Click the left icon (log file icon) above the table.
- The log file opens showing all steps OptionsApp took for this trade.
It documents in detail which actions were performed and where the process stopped.
Many issues are due to conflicting configurations or overly strict Trade Template criteria. If the log confirms this, adjust your parameters.
For any other error conditions, feel free to contact us at info@optionsapp.de anytime.