diff --git a/infra/k8s/services/ib-gateway.yaml b/infra/k8s/services/ib-gateway.yaml
index f45b133..96c64b1 100644
--- a/infra/k8s/services/ib-gateway.yaml
+++ b/infra/k8s/services/ib-gateway.yaml
@@ -76,8 +76,11 @@ spec:
             # full re-login each time). 08:00 UTC is clear of the 14:35 rebalancer + 23:30 nightly windows.
             - name: TIME_ZONE
               value: "Etc/UTC"
+            # MUST be zero-padded hh:mm (IBC's parser rejects "8:00 AM" with "Auto restart time setting must be
+            # hh:mm AM or hh:mm PM" — the rejection left the daily auto-restart UNCONFIGURED, so the gateway
+            # churned ~16 restarts/day instead of one clean daily cycle. Verified in the pod log 2026-07-20.)
             - name: AUTO_RESTART_TIME
-              value: "8:00 AM"
+              value: "08:00 AM"
             # Persist jts.ini + IBC config across pod restarts (a fresh empty volume just does a clean first-run
             # login) so settings survive a deploy/reschedule instead of being rebuilt each time.
             - name: TWS_SETTINGS_PATH
@@ -105,7 +108,9 @@ spec:
               port: 4002
             initialDelaySeconds: 120
             periodSeconds: 30
-            failureThreshold: 5
+            # 6×30s = 180s tolerance: the daily auto-restart + IBKR reauth window drops port 4002 for up to a
+            # couple of minutes; too tight a threshold would k8s-kill the pod mid-reauth and compound the churn.
+            failureThreshold: 6
           volumeMounts:
             - name: tws-settings
               mountPath: /home/ibgateway/tws_settings