IB: Direct Access or Not? See this text....

[def]

eldrige,
speed of confirmation could be affected by a number of factors such as the type of order you submit, what you are trading, how active the market is, the type of system on the other end, etc. Orders do not go green until the exchange confirms that it rec'd the order. For NASDAQ if an order gets in the hands of a mkt maker, that may take a few seconds. For an ECN like ISLD, it is immediate.

 

[Turok]

>can anybody experienced with IB, or any other
>retail broker (Real tick users, perhaps), give
>opinions regarding trading with IB, other than >realtick,,,,,not including the obvious commissions >difference.

Before considering my comments relevent to your needs, remember the following.

I trade only Naz. I am a scalper (from 10 to 200 trades per day) who is slowly moving to a longer time frame as I learn the market. I trade only medium to heavy volume stocks. I only use ECNs. I trade a small basket of stocks (meaning I know the stocks I trade and have my interface set up for them in advance) I work my own orders (never use the BEST routing feature of IB). I trade 3-500 shares

I currently have accounts with IB, MB(Realtick) and Protrader. I have executed thousands trades on my (now) secondary accounts and many, many hundreds on IB (now my primary account).

Your needs may vary from mine significantly.

Through the carefully laid out and practiced use of hotkeys, I can pick off ECN liquidity much faster with my IB account than I can with my others. I expected a commissions savings when I switched, but I am surprisingly profiting at least as much from the better execution interface.

I do not have quite the same flexibility with order types (IOC, non-displayed) using IB as I do with my others, but eventually they will see the light and give us this power.

I could never trade my style without a fast reliable data supplier feeding an excellent charting package. I still use Realtick for this.

JB