Positions are incorrectly filtered on the options chain

[blais]

Reporter: Martin Blais Date: 4/30/2021

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lXcY1mjaoXhpHkoJMed14Jy0PllGKrUh6eB04j0OiRA/

Description of problem

This is a problem which occurs when one has multiple accounts. I have a Roth IRA and a Individual Margin account, and positions on the same name and expiration are incorrectly rendered on options chain.

On the "Trade > Table" view (the options chain, where you place trades), the options that are rendered appear to be filtered by: Which accounts are highlighted at the top. Which account is set as the default trading account (via the "T" shield icon).

The highlights are expected, but they do not work properly. Sometimes the set of options that are rendered are incorrect and show an invalid position.

Moreover, without highlighting some accounts at the top, changing which account is trading by default, by clicking on the "T" shield, changes which positions are visible. This is unexpected.

User Impact

This caused me to scramble to get out of an earnings trade that was moving on the morning of 4/29. I ended up having to call the desk to figure out what position I had on, and trade a bunch of times to try to take the position off, trading in the wrong account back and forth a bunch of times. (I managed to take a winning trade on EBAY into a $150 loss that way.)

Steps to reproduce

• Create a setup with multiple accounts
• Place positions (e.g. an OTM vertical) on the same name and expiration, in both accounts.
• Confirm your positions from the Positions overview. Go back to the Trade > Table view, check that you have the full position.

A.

• Highlight one or both of the subaccounts, and witness incorrect positions appear.
• Sometimes one set of positions will appear for a fraction of a second and then disappear.
• Sometimes the order in which you click on the highlights will produce a different result, for the same highlight.

B.

• Unhighlight the accounts at the top, making sure to place the app in a state where both sets of positions are visible.
• Double-click on the other "T" shield than the one that is selected, without highlighting that account.
• You should see only the position for the default account, not both.

Expected Behavior

The UI for highlighting accounts suggests the following behavior:

• If no accounts are highlighted, all the positions appear
• If all accounts are highlighted, the result should be the same, all positions appear.
• If only one of the two accounts is selected, only the positions in this account should appear.

In fact, it appears to work precisely like this on the Positions overview. But in the Trade > Table view, it's not working like that (it's broken). It should work the same.

Second, changing the "T" shield should by itself change which set of positions is visible. It should only change the default account used in Confirm & Send. It should have no effect on the visibility of the positions.

Suggested improvements

This is unrelated to the bug, but here are some suggestions:

1. It would be more consistent if the highlights were absolute, that is, if none of the accounts are selected, none of the positions would be shown. Like toggles. In other words if

   • No accounts are selected, show no positions
   • Some accounts are selected, show only positions for those accounts
   • All accounts are selected, show all positions in all accounts.

2. When there are positions from multiple accounts on the same chain, improve the highlight on the options box. The box has a very small color marker next to its number:

This is way, way too subtle. You have enough space to place the little round dot or spade logo in there.

The default selection for which account a trade is being placed in is way way too subtle. The little "T" shield is insufficient. I traded in the wrong account 2 days in a row. Redesign this to be more obvious, lest more people call in after having burnt themselves.

Attachments

Platform Details

TW version: 1.14.2
OS: Linux PopOS! (System76 derivatives of Ubuntu 20.10)
Java: Zulu11
lumia:~$ java -version
openjdk version "11.0.11" 2021-04-20 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment Zulu11.48+21-CA (build 11.0.11+9-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Zulu11.48+21-CA (build 11.0.11+9-LTS, mixed mode)

I hope this helps. Thank you!

[blais]

Resolution 2021-05-28

Can you please acknowledge this bug? You seem to have missed this one. If I were dev lead on your team, this would be P0. Let me repeat it:

With multiple accounts, TW is NOT rendering the correct position on the table view. It is rendering an INCORRECT position.

Here's a new video, clearly showing the problem is still present on the platform: (edited out)

Here's the original video: (edited out)

Did you miss them as part of the longer thread? Thank you,

[blais]

Thank you for reaching out and apologies for the lack of response to your past reports as it seems they were lost in the shuffle. That said, the developers were able to recreate the behavior and a ticket has been made. We do not have an exact time frame for when this will be resolved but the team is working consistently on resolving issues and rolling out improvements to our trading platforms.