I didnt read the whole thread... but you know all these brokers and prop shops where you bring your own dough make a nice buck on your money. Even if you're a JBO your clearing firm makes it. Part of doing business
The tick value of any contract never changes.
Each individual tick no matter what the contract is stays the same value. As others mentioned look up the contract specs on the listing exchanges website. What contracts are you looking at?
I dont know anything about this stock or what the pending event is the vols are jacked to the moon and I would probably sit this one out unless I had a much better understanding of the company and whats pending... just MHO
No one had mentioned spread orders in this thread yet.
When you mentioned spreads... I commented NBBO because I thought you were talking about the bid offer spread... of course there is no NBBO on a spread order.
Prop firms and all kinds of other houses have had programs to check if the conversion / reversal is in line for more then a decade. If you find one you think is out of line you're probably missing a special circumstance.
What kind of size are you looking to trade? www.susq.com makes the markets in the PHLX currency options and I can put you in touch with the people who do the brokerage. I also know firms that fill on the IMM part of the CME if you want to trade options on the future.
Pretty vague answer by them. rest assured that they get some compensation for order flow on pure retail accounts. Every exchange does it. Soft money deals fly right under the radar and they're is no benefit for them to tell you about them.