Does IB trade against our orders?

QdzResurrection · Nov 6, 2003

No, not that I know of.

white17 · Nov 6, 2003

I don't care who takes the other side as long as I'm happy with my fill. It is axiomatic that when you buy the market will drop, and rise after you sell. As DEF says it would be impractical to reverse engineer. Impractical and highly cost inefficient.

Sure there are outfits using orderflow to dope out where the market will be particularly on open. It doesn't bother me. I just need to be correct in my positions.

Catoosa · Nov 7, 2003

"There is nothing to fear but fear it-self"

With the speed that IB turns stock orders around, there is no time for IB to be sitting in the middle and taking advantage of their clients. I have traded with IB since January 2000 and have never had any indication that I did not get the fair honest fill of all my orders.

maxpi · Nov 7, 2003

Quote from vanilla2:

I know from an aquaintence/specialist on the amex that firms like sesquahanna do just that, mimick their best customers' activity. it is his full time occupation, monitoring his highest performing customers' activity for proprietary use.

Suspected as much. Can't really trust your broker. I saw a post on another list wherein a trader was saying that he had a computer that was only allowing internet from his broker and his data provider and he was getting trojan horse attacks.

:mad:

spyderman · Nov 7, 2003

Quote from DK_:

Maybe you misread vanilla2:

"I know from an aquaintence/specialist on the amex that firms like sesquahanna do just that, mimick their best customers' activity. it is his full time occupation, monitoring his highest performing customers' activity for proprietary use."

That is what I suggested must be "wildly illegal"

Well it is supposed to be transparent, who is doing what and where.....thats how many of the old timers kept track of who had what in the deck. You pretty much know what your opponent has in any other sport...why not this one?

hayman · Nov 7, 2003

Quote from Lobster:

While I am reasonably sure that IB is not doing anything illegal or even semi-legal like datek used to, there is one thing that I have observed, and I believe it happens at the NYSE: Often times I see a trade the second after I put in my order, and it is exactly the price and size of my limit. Yet, I never get that fill. At first I was thinking IB gets the fill and decides later whether to allocate it to the customer account (mine) or to one of its own accounts (like datek used to, didn't they?). But when you think about it, such behavior wouldn't really make sense. It appears much more likely that someone at the NYSE (probably the specialist) is the one who executes the trade against "my" trading partner, but holds it in his own account while deciding whether to give it to me or not. He is almost allowed to do that, isn't he? I mean, he is SUPPOSED to trade based on order flow...

Yes, happens all the time with our wonderful Specialist system. Another flaw in the system, that is overlooked by the NYSE and the regulators. I think they call it "maintaining an orderly market" or some doubletalk like that. Amazing that Reed endorses this antiquated operation, eh ? Maybe they are cutting him some deals, the next time you trade.....LOL

hayman · Nov 7, 2003

Quote from def:

vanilla, I can assure you that none of IB's affiliates do that or would even consider "reverse engineering" client flow. Keep in mind IB's proprietary trading affiliates are doing somewhere on the order of a couple of hundred thousand trades per day around the world. Not only is such a practice unethical and probably illegal, given our scope and scale of trading it is completely impractical.

def,

I think everyone is jumping all over IB with these accusations, due to the outage today. What was the official IB response to the problem today, BTW ?

vanilla2 · Nov 8, 2003

Quote from def:

vanilla, I can assure you that none of IB's affiliates do that or would even consider "reverse engineering" client flow. Keep in mind IB's proprietary trading affiliates are doing somewhere on the order of a couple of hundred thousand trades per day around the world. Not only is such a practice unethical and probably illegal, given our scope and scale of trading it is completely impractical.

Def,

Thanks very much for your explanation. I'm really happy with IB's service, and your presence here is highly appreciated. no complaints. Top notch operation.

v