There are a number of reasons that TAT might be unable to find a trade. Listed below are some of the most common reasons this can occur and what you can to do fix it.
Quotes Not Loaded
If TAT doesn't have the Quotes loaded as expected, it won't have the data necessary to select your trade. Be sure to look on the Quotes page in TAT to ensure you see the full options chain and current timestamps on the pricing for options near ATM. If there are no strikes listed, or the timestamps are outdated, restart TAT and reconnect to TWS to restart the data subscriptions.
Include Additional Width Options
If you use Width to determine your long strikes, it is helpful to provide multiple width options. This will give TAT more possible strikes and more trade options to choose from. This can avoid a situation where a trade cannot be found because you already have a short position on the same strike that could have been used for the long. This situation can also occur on trending days where you have a lot of short positions open and the market moves in your favor and all of those short options are now much cheaper and would have been options for the long leg of new trades. Finally, this can be a problem if the SPX chain is missing strikes at some increments, which happens from time to time after large moves in SPX over several days.
To provide multiple width options, simply enter multiple width options, separated by a comma between numbers.
Enable Extended Quotes (IBKR Broker Data Only)
If TAT doesn't have quotes loaded for a strike that you would need for your trade, it will be unable to open. This can happen more commonly when using a .05 or .10 max premium for the long leg. When VIX (and option premiums) are high, .05 and .10 strikes are much more OTM than at other times. (During high VIX conditions on 8/5/2024, .05 put strikes were over 900 points from the money at the open.)
To see what strikes TAT has quotes loaded for you can look on the Quotes page. By default, TAT limits the strikes that it requests quotes for to stay under the default limit of 100 quotes. It is possible to configure TAT to increase the number of strikes it loaded with the Extended Quotes option.
On the TAT Settings page, you can enable Extended Quotes, under the Market Data section for the Symbol you are trading. You will then configure how many points OTM and ITM you want TAT to request market data for.
It is possible you may need to purchase a "booster pack" if you receive messages from IBKR about requesting quotes for too many symbols.
Further Troubleshooting - Debug Level Logging
If you are still having trouble determining why no matching trade is found, it is recommended to enable "Debug Logging". This can be done on the TAT settings page. This will log to the TXT file all possible strikes and trades evaluated when selecting a trade and is very helpful for support to help determine why no trade was found.
First, on the settings page switch the "Logging Level" to "Debug Logging" and save. This will configure TAT to write additional information to the TXT log file during the process of searching for a trade.
NOTE: Debug Logging will use slightly more system resources and make your data.db3 database file larger than it would be otherwise. We recommend only running with Debug Logging enabled while you are attempting to diagnose an issue, but leaving it turned off during the normal trading day.
Once Debug logging is enabled, go to the Instant Trade page and trigger a Preview Trade attempting to find a trade. Then go to the Log page and Export the TXT log file. In the log file you will see a number of log entries during the trade selection process followed by a list of possible trades. This shows the progression through removing trades that do not fit your trade template, or would conflict with existing positions.
Trade - Filter Trades on credit complete (26 possible trades)
Trade - Filter Trades on max premium complete (26 possible trades)
Trade - Filter Trades on open positions complete (26 possible trades)
Trade - Filter Trades on same short strike and price complete (4 possible trades)
Trade - 3 possible Call trades, 1 possible Put trades
Final sorted Trade list:
4555/4610 C 2.975
4515/4355 P 2.9
4560/4630 C 2.10
4560/4610 C 2.05
More info about how to read the logs can be found in this article