I’m doing live algorithmic daytrading. Day orders are placed every few minutes, then cancelled unless filled, and new orders are placed. At the end of the day, ALL orders are cancelled. However, this morning I see open orders placed yesterday that are simply impossible.
First of all, they were supposedly placed yesterday, but those are DAY orders. Even if my code wouldn’t have cancelled them, they should have been cancelled at the end of the day. Second, some of those positions don’t even exist in my account, and I have short trading turned off. Such orders for non-existing positions could not have been accepted in the first place. Finally, my trading log shows that those orders were not placed at all, at least not at the time and with the limits shown in my Alpaca page. Take TQQQ, for example. I did place a similar order but it happened sooner than shown:
18:30:52 TQQQ placed sell order for 31 shares, limit $91.15
It’s UTC time corresponding to 14:30 EST. There is no chance it would have taken 40 seconds for Alpaca to actually place the order. Usually it takes a split second. But even if that happened, that order could not have been still open, because it was cancelled a few minutes later, then many new orders were placed and cancelled for TQQQ, until it was finally sold, after which no new sell orders were placed - as I said, I don’t sell short.
My concern is that Alpaca’s database of orders is compromised and it shows some phantom orders that must not be there. If such DAY order dated the previous day and placed before 6 pm EST (so it MUST have been cancelled!) persists until the opening of the market, it could lead to unexpected transactions and real losses.
P.S. I tried to cancel those orders manually but they are still there. So, those are truly phantom orders. But I cannot be sure they won’t be treated as real live orders when the market opens. Some of them are for existing positions, which therefore could be sold without my intention.
