Does Schwab Limit Price Improvement for Very Heavy Trading?

I'm not talking about DMA and sending the order to a specific venue. The Smart Routing options on Lightspeed's page. You have any stats on Price Improvements for those? Obviously, some clients if sending millions of orders are going to receive some price improvement on a portion of those compared to NBBO.
 
I'm trading with TD Ameritrade (owned by Schwab now). Been getting great price improvements until about a month ago. Then the improvements completely disappeared! The difference is blatantly obvious.

The orders are BUY at ASK, SELL at BID. Mostly penny stocks, some in upper single digits (0.40 to $9.00) Used to be if spread is a penny, you could actually buy and they fill you either in between or at the bid sometimes. for wide spread, lets say stock in the 8.00 range with 15 cent spread, you could count on at least some of the orders to get filled in between with 0.05 to 0.10 improvement. Used to get at least half the orders with price improvements. Now, if you get 0.001 on any of them, you are lucky.

This is happening with multiple TD Ameritrade accounts, with various levels of activity. same exact trades placed at same exact time via other retail brokers with free commissions - still getting great price improvements, same as before.

Something DEFNITELY changed. I contact them but got a runaround and denial that there was any change, but that is BS. The difference is easily hundreds of dollars a day. I am not the only one seeing this.
 
j_medved said:
I'm trading with TD Ameritrade (owned by Schwab now). Been getting great price improvements until about a month ago. Then the improvements completely disappeared! The difference is blatantly obvious.

The orders are BUY at ASK, SELL at BID. Mostly penny stocks, some in upper single digits (0.40 to $9.00) Used to be if spread is a penny, you could actually buy and they fill you either in between or at the bid sometimes. for wide spread, lets say stock in the 8.00 range with 15 cent spread, you could count on at least some of the orders to get filled in between with 0.05 to 0.10 improvement. Used to get at least half the orders with price improvements. Now, if you get 0.001 on any of them, you are lucky.

This is happening with multiple TD Ameritrade accounts, with various levels of activity. same exact trades placed at same exact time via other retail brokers with free commissions - still getting great price improvements, same as before.

Something DEFNITELY changed. I contact them but got a runaround and denial that there was any change, but that is BS. The difference is easily hundreds of dollars a day. I am not the only one seeing this.
More...

Change brokers I guess. Where were your trades executing before?
 
Not sure if what TD said is BS, but the trading/routing operations haven't integrated yet and full integration isn't scheduled until 2023.



What to know now.
  • It's business as usual for now. You don't need to take any action.
  • We are currently in the process of reshaping our branch network to be a larger, stronger, and more modern branch network than either company had before on its own. To that end, some clients may experience changes to their local branch access over the coming months. If your branch is one of those being impacted, you will be notified.
  • Schwab and TD Ameritrade are working together to combine the strengths of our firms and merge as one company to benefit you. To ensure we have time to build the best experience possible for our clients, we expect account conversion to be complete within 30-36 months of the original deal close, which would be somewhere between April and September of 2023 for most accounts.
  • Until then, Schwab and TD Ameritrade will continue to operate as two separate broker-dealers.
  • You’ll be notified well in advance of any changes along the way.
 
ajacobson said:
Not sure if what TD said is BS, but the trading/routing operations haven't integrated yet and full integration isn't scheduled until 2023.


What to know now.
  • It's business as usual for now. You don't need to take any action.
  • We are currently in the process of reshaping our branch network to be a larger, stronger, and more modern branch network than either company had before on its own. To that end, some clients may experience changes to their local branch access over the coming months. If your branch is one of those being impacted, you will be notified.
  • Schwab and TD Ameritrade are working together to combine the strengths of our firms and merge as one company to benefit you. To ensure we have time to build the best experience possible for our clients, we expect account conversion to be complete within 30-36 months of the original deal close, which would be somewhere between April and September of 2023 for most accounts.
  • Until then, Schwab and TD Ameritrade will continue to operate as two separate broker-dealers.
  • You’ll be notified well in advance of any changes along the way.
More...

True, however it could have been a policy change as opposed to something with integration. The difference though is undeniable. Multiple people I trade with for the exact same thing. I certainly hope that something changes soon, but I'll have to bite the bullet and deal with moving some accounts
 
How would they submit an order with your previous PI info? Hell of a whistleblower claim and a crime. TD and Schwab probably overlap a great deal in routing, but each sends over a million orders an hour.
 
Speedtrader1 said:
So I have been trading at Schwab using market orders only in quantities of 1,000 to 2,500 shares usually trading AAL and HAL. I had been getting exceedingly good execution consistently since July, then at the beginning of Feb in my taxable account and today in my Roth it's like I got put in "price improvement jail?" I trade a lot, approximate 500-600 round trips per day. I usually only go for a penny, sometimes two. Trading 20-45k I've been averaging $1,700 to $2,000 plus per day. I do it by evaluating the level two screens, taking into consideration market maker/institutional head fakes. I have quite a bit of trading experience and like to keep things simple. My strategy depends on price improvement because if I'm wrong I get out and take very little to no loss. But when I only buy at the ask and sell at the bid this strategy doesn't work. They're still letting me trade and I've received no notifications from them I've done anything wrong. I'm assuming this is Schwab and not the market maker? I'm also hoping this is temporary in that this is an effort by them to ensure more even distribution of price improvement going to other investors? Any info other experiences you've had would be appreciated. thx!
More...


You think your fills are bad now. Just wait till the Equity Exchanges start counting your orders and then treat you as a Professional customer (over 390 orders per day). There is a rule (IEX) in the pipeline that will do just that.

You will NOT participate in price improvement auctions any longer. Also a decent chance your fees will increase and you will also have your orders ignored by other professionals.
 
mskl said:
You think your fills are bad now. Just wait till the Equity Exchanges start counting your orders and then treat you as a Professional customer (over 390 orders per day). There is a rule (IEX) in the pipeline that will do just that.

You will NOT participate in price improvement auctions any longer. Also a decent chance your fees will increase and you will also have your orders ignored by other professionals.
More...
Y know about that one, but keeping it under that limit. Btw they already count. I know people that got the notice
 
Can someone explain this “price improvement” thing to me

Is it just something with no commission brokers?

If they’re able to improve your price that means they’re giving someone else a worse price so how does that work out
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top