I need a broker recommendation

S

Softgiant

I am looking for a pay per share broker and here is what I need.

-good executions
-ability to trade from 2 locations, home and work
-low commissions, since I make frequent small profit trades
-streaming realtime, I usually use 2 min and up time frames

It seems as though lightspeed and Interactive brokers are the two I hear of the most, are there other reputable firms out there?

Would anyone be so kind to give me their thoughts on which broker to choose?

When trading with IB does the realtime feeds come with the commission prices of .006 a share?

Does Lightspeed include the real time strea with the .004 per share?

First time switching to a pay per share. I am currently with scottrade and the commissions I am paying doesnt make sense with the trading style.

Thanks for your insight,
 
Quote from Softgiant:

I am looking for a pay per share broker and here is what I need.

-good executions
-ability to trade from 2 locations, home and work
-low commissions, since I make frequent small profit trades
-streaming realtime, I usually use 2 min and up time frames
More...

What is the trading volume you are looking at doing per month?

I use RealTick and really like it. But they charge something like $260/month for the platform fee. Your brokerage firm will rebate it if you trade over X times a month. There are different brokerage firms offering RealTick, I use:

mastertrader.com

They post their commission schedule on the web. If you trade a lot more than their minimum, you can negotiate a better rate.

I like RealTick because their execution speed and flexibility are very good. You can program hotkeys and submit and change orders very quickly. Useful if you are frequently catching fast markets. E.g. if you use the Internet browser based order entry/modification method, to place/change an order it takes no less than 30 seconds. Using RealTick, you can change your price twice in one second with hotkeys.
 
thanks bolimono I will look into their service. I dont trade a ton in terms of share...probably 2000-3000 per day give or take. This is something I do in spare time, gotta go to work to get the benefits and income for the fam...trying to build up my account though...figure a year or two more and then maybe I can take a crack at it more pemanently

I appreciate you taking the time to help me out, i read several of your old posts, very helpful
 
I have not had an account with Lightspeed. I went to their web site and reviewed all information there. I also read all of the Lightspeed client reviews here on ET under "Brokers". The client reviews are for sure a big help and that is where I like to start. I also did a search here on ET for "Lightspeed and futures" and read all of the post I found there. I concluded that Lightspeed has a great rate on futures but not a very good rate on stocks if you plan to place orders that take liquidity. For my use with stocks, when I decide it is time to get in or out, I am going to hit the bid or ask and not try a tease some one into giving me a better price. IB has an "all-in" price of .005 per share with 1.00 minimum. For stocks, Lightspeed is not close to the IB rate after you add in the Lightspeed ECN and other fees to their .004 per share price. I have had an IB account for over 10 years and I sure am not going to be moving to Lightspeed. All things considered, I have not found another broker I would pick over IB. I hope my research and input will be of some help for you.
 
Before 2004, I had two different accounts with IB. In each case, I got frozen out of their tws, i.e., I couldn't log in. In each case, they told me to just close my account, when I asked for help. I wonder what they would say now if it happened again.

What a bunch of hateful pricks.
 
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