How does the multiplier work in conjunction with the leg count of the position?

[Flippo24]

I have sold 5 puts and am now rolling them.

By default, the leg count is 5 and the multiplier is 1.
I have to change the multiplier to 5 in order to receive the premium for 5 pieces.

This results in...

I actually have one leg and 5 of these.

Then I get the right premium but only 1 leg was rolled once.

In the third way I have 5 legs and roll them 1 time.

Here all 5 legs are rolled one time, but only one premium is taken into account.

Does the multiplier affect the number of legs that are rolled or not? Should both be the same when rolling? If so, can this be preset?
When it comes to legs, I always think of the strategies that you put together in the TWS. You choose the legs (e.g. for Iron Condor) and then the number of strategies you want to trade. E.g. 3 Iron Condors.

[PaulSquires]

I kind of understand what your confusion. Actually, in the first versions of the program there was an effort to kind of tie the legs (as seen in the grids) to the financial area (quantity, price, multiplier, etc...). Quantity would multiply by the leg quantity, etc. This was confusing for users and ended up having to manually edit leg quantities in the grid to achieve the correct answers. The current approach: The amounts in the grids represent the transaction that will be posted to the database. The financial area represents the data that IBKR will show you when you place the trade.

For example, this screenshot: (look at the ROKU trade where I rolled down the 108 Call to 105)

You can see that the financial transaction was Quantity 4 at $0.17 CR less $9.45 in fees.

Here is what the Trade History looks like:

And here is what the Roll Transaction looked like when I view it via Edit Transaction:

It is kind of hard to visualize what the numbers would be unless you were processing the trades via TWS. Maybe try logging into your Paper Trading account to get a feel for it all flows. It is easy once you do it online, but harder when you do it offline manually and try to reason what numbers go where.

[PaulSquires]

Everything is seamless if you roll the total quantity in a leg. However, if you are rolling partial quantities of a leg then you need to adjust the quantities in the leg grids to reflect the number of contracts that you are rolling. The financial area would be just whatever the Trades history on TWS says.

[PaulSquires]

Say for example that I need to roll my 4 contracts of PLTR Jan 5 17.5 Puts.

If I roll all 4 of them at once then I would key in 4 for the Quantity, 0.17 for the price (that's the price per contract).

If I was only rolling 1 of the contracts then I would edit the leg grid as follows:

[Flippo24]

Thank you for making the effort. But I'm lacking consistency here. The way you have here
sounds plausible. That I specify 4 legs and also set the quantity to 4 at the bottom.
But then these 4 legs should also be listed when editing the transaction and not 1 or -1 with number 4.

In the same way, when selling the puts, it should not be -1 leg and quantity 4, but -4 legs and quantity 4.

If all this is not to be the case, then, conversely, when rolling 1 leg and -1 leg and number 4 should be shown.

So that it is treated the same in all windows. Consistent.
I hope you understand me.

[PaulSquires]

Ahhhhh.... yes, now I see what you are talking about. The Edit Transaction will show differently than the roll as per the screen shot below. I will look into this to see where the inconsistency is.

[Flippo24]

You got it!

[PaulSquires]

Here is the curve ball..... When you do the initial purchase, the Quantity on the bottom of the screen will multiply against the Quantity in the Leg grid. So you can enter, say -1 Put in the grid, and then 4 quantity in the financial section to give you 4 total Puts. I admit that there are inconsistencies. I am thinking that for new orders, when the user types in a Quantity in the financial section then the Leg quantities in the grid section should automatically update to show the total amounts for each leg being bought/sold rather than hiding that calculation behind the scenes. I need to do more thinking about this and flowchart the processes to ensure that there will be consistency between New, Add To, Roll, Edit, Close type of transactions.

This screenshot will actually result in four $107 Calls. For greater certainty I think that I should update the leg quantity to -4 when the user types in 4 in the Quantity at the bottom of the screen.

[Flippo24]

Is it maybe easier to leave out the count of legs anywhere? So that only the quantity defines the amount.