> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.motivewave.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.motivewave.com/knowledge-base/connection/interactive-brokers-connection/historical-data-is-slow-with-interactive-brokers.md).

# Historical Data is Slow with Interactive Brokers

If you are connecting with Interactive Brokers, the limitations that they put on loading historical Time and Sales data is too restrictive for data-intensive studies such as Volume Imprint, Cumulative Delta or TPO. They only allow 1000 ticks per request and limit the number of requests. This means any study loading data, especially tick data might take awhile. Interactive Brokers' data servers are quite slow and trying to download tick data from them is incredibly slow. Their data is throttled: <https://interactivebrokers.github.io/tws-api/historical_limitations.html>&#x20;

With IBKR, we usually recommend an additional feed for historical tick data, such as IQFeed or dxFeed. In case you trade futures, switching to Rithmic or CQG will also make a big difference.


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