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Market Makers are scalpers. Market Making a security with a nice spread and decent volume... Is a license to print money... Even from a retail account. Do you actually trade... Or do you just browse 10 pound books?

This. Most people building uber-complex systems... (400,000 lines of code for an "algo server"?????)... Are unwittingly contributing to the field of Artificial Stupidity. And in a world that is rapidly moving to off-the-shelf Grid Computing... Where every core is viewed as a processing...

This is a very important concept. Most profitable trading strategies are quite straightforward... Usually some variation on classic Market Making or Relative Value Arbitrage. But what makes it profitable is EXECUTION... Infrastructure, low costs, discipline, etc. If you cannot explain...

The 18% take at the track... Versus the typical 0.01% fee for Forex trading... Makes for a perfect analogy.

Generally, having a single point of failure for your business... Like an proprietary NAS that goes down... Is not a good idea, especially for a trading business. Just go to a place like NewEgg... And start reading the horror stories.

You need to approach this differently. On an ECN or exchange... the spread is YOUR FRIEND... It's a source of trading income. Assuming you know what you are doing... You will make more money with 4 pip spreads than 2 pip spreads... Though at some point it starts working against you...

If you were "draining the banks"... You wouldn't be posting that crap here.

My firm does > 100,000 trades/year... So this is not realistic. What is realistic... Is being acutely aware that, say, 1 out of 1000 IB executions or positions is erroneous... (So for me that would be about 100 errors/year)... And catch anything major quickly... While just absorbing the...

There web site is full of Forex Double Talking Jive... Like "Multi-Bank Liquidity Feed"... And "Smart Routing to Leading Banks"... And 50 "awards" they have "won"... Instead of laying anything out straight. An ECN does not talk like this. Compare Dukascopy ECN... Fees, everything is...

Not exactly. If you do not have decent profit margins... And I would throw out 40% as a minimum for stocks... Then your business will not grow... And you will become a "subsistence gambler"... Spinning your wheels year after year... And unable to absorb structural changes that go against...

You cannot seem to relate to fact... That IB has a very low risk business model... And just sailed thru the biggest Financial Crisis in a 70 years... While continuing to post profits. My firm has as very similar risk profile on a smaller scale... And is posting record profits 2007-09...

You have a very limited understanding of stats. Do you think IB's Market Making operation is gambling? Do you think IB is "at variance's mercy". Have you ever even looked at IB's financial statements? My hedge fund has roughly the same risk profile as IB's MM operation... Because most...

It's probably not TWS which only displays the data... It's more likely some back office problem at IB... Or as they would just totally lie about it... "An issue with the exchange NYSE". IB's overall TWS strategy is completely brain dead... They need to have a stripped down version of TWS...

Precisely. From G20 Soros said the leaders are "ahead of the curve"... Which is ludicrous... And here he paints a gloomy scenario. Ignore what Obama and friends say... But watch what they do.

IB is one of the most sophisticated MM in the world... And Market Making on IDEALPRO is not exactly rocket science... With the 3-4 pip spreads I see in USD.CAD most of the time... It's very lucrative indeed... So I'm sure IB is by far the biggest player on their own ECN.

There is nothing in your post... That shows your claims are statistically significant... And using "DEMO" accounts for ANYTHING is highly suspect. Market makers are in direct competition with active traders... And will use CLASSIC legal and illegal techniques... To take your money... So...

I've made over 1,000,000 stock trades... Then did about 300 IDEALPRO trades last week USD.CAN... As an experiment. I'm not really interested in playing inside the spread... Because then you step on a lot of toes... But I find that limit orders outside the spread... Are non-threatening...

Your basic problem is LOW BUDGET... So you are mucking around with "retail" crapware. There is no serious trading firm on earth using these products... They are all in the enterprise space... With Thomson Reuters and their competitors. You DO NOT save money on doctors, lawyers...

I would estimate that 5% of IDEALPRO limit orders... Are executed with price improvement... Sometimes with > 1 pip. With limit orders IB pretty much plays it straight... But when hitting bids/offers... You're order appears to be telegraphed and may be faded.

There's no "secret". They are just applying classic relative value arbitrage... But doing it in an extremely optimized way. Anyone doing this well... Would have had huge windfall profits in 2008 because of... (1) Ridiculous market inefficiencies. (2) Expanded bid/ask spreads...