Can StreamXLS place orders automatically?

[streamxls-dev]

A question people ask in IBKR trading forums — answered here so it's searchable.

[streamxls-dev]

No. Every order StreamXLS relays to TWS is staged, never transmitted. The StageOrder topic populates an order in TWS; the park key selects only how that staged order presents there (default: a deactivated order in the TWS order list with a Submit button; park=true: a local order ticket with a Transmit button, visible only in the parking user's own TWS). StreamXLS never transmits it — the order waits in TWS for a deliberate action there. There is no transmit verb in the RTD vocabulary and no configuration key that adds one. SENDORDER is accepted as a legacy synonym of StageOrder and does exactly the same thing: it stages. StageOrder is the canonical name in the docs because it says what actually happens.

=RTD("Tws.Rtd",, "StageOrder", "sym=AAPL", "side=BUY", "shares=100", "type=LMT", "limit=150.05", "exch=SMART")

Staging itself, though, is automatic — this is the part worth understanding. Staging is a side-effect of subscribing: entering the formula anywhere in Excel is the action that stages the order, with no separate "go" step. Fill a StageOrder formula down a column of symbols and you stage one order per row. Edit a staged formula's limit price and you stage a second, independent order — the original stays staged. Delete the cell and the order in TWS is not cancelled. There is also no cancel or replace verb from a formula: once staged, all modification, cancellation and transmission happen in TWS itself. Treat each StageOrder cell as a one-shot button, not a live order you edit in place.

If you want that guarantee enforced outside StreamXLS entirely, leave "Read-Only API" enabled in TWS (Global Configuration → API → Settings). StreamXLS cannot stage anything through a read-only API session — market data, positions, account values and order monitoring all keep working. Staging requires you to turn that setting off deliberately, so the safe default is IBKR-enforced rather than something you have to take our word for.

One naming trap worth knowing: submit= is an accepted StageOrder key — it is a synonym for tag, the free-text order reference. It does not submit anything; "submit=true" simply tags the order with the text "true".

Details: order staging in the FAQ · StageOrder write keys.