Glossary
A shared vocabulary for Interactive Brokers, TWS, Gateway, market data, order handling, backtesting, portfolio metrics, and Python workflows.
IBKR
Interactive Brokers account, contract, routing, and API concepts.
7 terms
TWS
Trader Workstation terms for desktop API development and manual review.
5 terms
Gateway
IB Gateway terms for lighter, longer-running API sessions.
3 terms
Market data
Live, delayed, historical, and permissioned data terms.
8 terms
Orders
Order types, identifiers, controls, and safety vocabulary.
8 terms
Backtesting
Research validation terms and common sources of overstatement.
7 terms
Portfolio metrics
Return, risk, exposure, and performance measurement terms.
8 terms
Python
Python environment, data, async, and reproducibility terms.
8 terms
IBKR
Interactive Brokers account, contract, routing, and API concepts.
A numeric identifier for an API connection. Multiple API clients must use distinct client IDs against the same TWS or Gateway session.
Related: API socket, TWS, IB Gateway
IBKR's numeric contract identifier for a specific tradable instrument or contract definition.
Related: contract, contract details
The instrument descriptor sent to the IBKR API, including fields such as symbol, security type, exchange, currency, and sometimes expiry or strike.
Related: conId, SMART routing, primary exchange
The brokerage account context that controls permissions, balances, subscriptions, trading mode, and API access for a session.
Related: market data subscription, paper trading, net liquidation value
A brokerage platform commonly used by active traders, developers, and institutions for global market access through desktop tools and APIs.
Related: TWS, IB Gateway, paper trading
A simulated trading environment used to test connectivity, order logic, and workflows without intentionally placing live orders.
Related: live trading, order safety, transmit flag
IBKR order routing logic that can route eligible orders across venues instead of forcing a single exchange destination.
Related: exchange, order route, primary exchange
TWS
Trader Workstation terms for desktop API development and manual review.
The local network interface that TWS or IB Gateway exposes so Python clients can connect to the IBKR API.
Related: client ID, localhost, trusted IPs
The local port numbers used by TWS or Gateway for API connections. Paper and live sessions often use different defaults and local settings can override them.
Related: API socket, paper trading, connection refused
A TWS or Gateway setting that allows API clients to read account or market data while blocking order placement through that connection.
Related: order safety, account summary, positions
IBKR's desktop trading application. Developers often use TWS while building because the UI makes account state, orders, logs, and settings visible.
Related: API socket, IB Gateway, paper trading port
A local API security setting that limits which network addresses may connect to the TWS or Gateway socket.
Related: localhost, API socket, security
Gateway
IB Gateway terms for lighter, longer-running API sessions.
The authenticated runtime state of IB Gateway, including login status, API settings, and any scheduled restart behavior.
Related: reconnect logic, session reset, heartbeat
A lighter IBKR application that exposes API connectivity without the full TWS trading desktop interface.
Related: TWS, API socket, session reset
Application code that detects a lost IBKR API connection, waits safely, reconnects, and resubscribes only when appropriate.
Related: heartbeat, order state, market data subscription
Market data
Live, delayed, historical, and permissioned data terms.
The duration of each historical data bucket, such as 1 minute, 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 1 day.
Related: historical bars, resampling, time zone
Time-bucketed historical data records such as one-minute or daily bars, often containing open, high, low, close, and volume fields.
Related: bar size, whatToShow, regular trading hours
An account permission that determines whether a session can receive real-time or certain historical data for an instrument or exchange.
Related: delayed data, snapshot, historical bars
IBKR request-rate constraints that limit how quickly certain market data, historical data, or scanner requests may be submitted.
Related: historical bars, rate limit, retry
A filter for market data or orders that limits behavior to a venue's regular session rather than extended-hours periods.
Related: historical bars, outside RTH
A one-time market data request that returns the current available values instead of keeping an ongoing streaming subscription open.
Related: streaming market data, market data subscription
A live subscription where updates are pushed to the API client as values change, subject to permissions and pacing constraints.
Related: snapshot data, pacing, tick
An IBKR historical data request parameter that selects the data series, such as trades, midpoint, bid, ask, or adjusted last when supported.
Related: historical bars, market data subscription
Orders
Order types, identifiers, controls, and safety vocabulary.
A linked order structure that usually combines an entry order with profit-taking and stop-loss child orders.
Related: parent order, child order, transmit flag
An order with a specified limit price that caps the buy price or floors the sell price, while not guaranteeing execution.
Related: market order, time in force, transmit flag
An order intended to execute immediately at the best available price, accepting execution price uncertainty.
Related: limit order, slippage, order safety
The API-side order identifier used by a client session to place, track, modify, or cancel orders.
Related: permId, order status, client ID
An IBKR-assigned order identifier intended to remain associated with an order beyond a single client-side orderId sequence.
Related: orderId, execution, fill
An order that becomes active after a stop trigger condition is met, commonly used for exits or risk controls.
Related: bracket order, trigger, risk
An order instruction that controls how long an order remains active, such as day, good-till-cancelled, or immediate-or-cancel.
Related: limit order, order status
An IBKR API order field that controls whether an order or linked set is actually sent for execution when placed through the API.
Related: bracket order, parent order, paper trading
Backtesting
Research validation terms and common sources of overstatement.
A reference series used to evaluate strategy returns, risk, exposure, or opportunity cost.
Related: alpha, beta, drawdown
A research error where a strategy uses information that would not have been known at the simulated decision time.
Related: out-of-sample, walk-forward, data leakage
Data reserved for evaluation after strategy rules or parameters have been selected using separate development data.
Related: in-sample, walk-forward, overfitting
The difference between an assumed execution price and the actual or modeled fill price.
Related: market order, transaction costs, fill
A research error caused by testing only instruments that still exist or remain listed, excluding failed, delisted, or removed instruments.
Related: universe selection, benchmark, sample period
Costs associated with trading, including commissions, fees, spreads, market impact, borrow costs, and taxes where relevant.
Related: slippage, turnover, spread
A validation workflow that repeatedly trains or selects parameters on one time window and evaluates them on a later window.
Related: out-of-sample, overfitting, sample period
Portfolio metrics
Return, risk, exposure, and performance measurement terms.
A measure of sensitivity between a strategy or asset return series and a benchmark return series.
Related: benchmark, correlation, exposure
The decline from a prior equity-curve peak to a later trough, usually expressed as a percentage.
Related: maximum drawdown, equity curve, risk
A time series of portfolio value or cumulative returns used to inspect growth, drawdowns, and regime behavior.
Related: drawdown, CAGR, volatility
The largest observed peak-to-trough decline in a selected evaluation period.
Related: drawdown, equity curve, recovery
An account-level value that estimates total account equity if positions were liquidated at current marks, subject to broker calculations.
Related: equity curve, cash, portfolio
A risk-adjusted return metric that compares excess return to return volatility over a specified period and annualization convention.
Related: volatility, Sortino ratio, risk-free rate
A risk-adjusted return metric that compares excess return to downside deviation rather than total volatility.
Related: Sharpe ratio, downside deviation, risk
A measure of how much of a portfolio is traded over a period, often used to estimate cost sensitivity and operational load.
Related: transaction costs, slippage, rebalance
Python
Python environment, data, async, and reproducibility terms.
Python's runtime mechanism for scheduling and running asynchronous tasks, callbacks, and coroutines.
Related: coroutine, ib_async, Jupyter notebook
An async Python function result that must be awaited or scheduled before it actually runs.
Related: asyncio event loop, await, task
A two-dimensional labeled table, most commonly from pandas, used for market data, positions, account values, and research results.
Related: pandas, Series, CSV
Recording exact or constrained dependency versions so code can be reproduced later with fewer unexpected package changes.
Related: virtual environment, requirements.txt, lockfile
A one-dimensional labeled pandas object often used for a single price, return, signal, or metric time series.
Related: DataFrame, time series, pandas
A Python datetime value that carries time zone information, reducing ambiguity when aligning market sessions and historical bars.
Related: historical bars, bar size, time series
Python annotations that describe expected value types for functions, variables, and data structures.
Related: mypy, dataclass, pydantic
An isolated Python environment that keeps project dependencies separate from the system Python and other projects.
Related: package pinning, requirements.txt, dependency drift
This content is for educational and technical research purposes only. It is not financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, tax advice, or legal advice. Backtests and examples may contain errors or omissions. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always test code in a safe environment before using it with real accounts or live trading systems.
Interactive Brokers, IBKR, Trader Workstation, and IB Gateway are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. InQuantWeTrust is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Interactive Brokers.
