IB (finally?) admits to matching orders internally

[Robert Morse]

4 posts in a row. I like the passion. I don't expect you to switch, I just want to point out that our equity rates are similar to IB's rates, our options rates are lower and so are our future's rates.
https://www.lightspeed.com/pricing/commission/
I also will tell you that rates are not everything. You need a broker that fits your trading and your needs. We don't do everything and we don't offer everything, nor do we want to. We want to offer the best software we can, at a fair price with the best service/support we can. We only focus on US Listed Equities, Options and Futures.

Bob

 

[hajimow]

4 posts in a row. I like the passion. I don't expect you to switch, I just want to point out that our equity rates are similar to IB's rates, our options rates are lower and so are our future's rates.
https://www.lightspeed.com/pricing/commission/
I also will tell you that rates are not everything. You need a broker that fits your trading and your needs. We don't do everything and we don't offer everything, nor do we want to. We want to offer the best software we can, at a fair price with the best service/support we can. We only focus on US Listed Equities, Options and Futures.

Bob

Your rates are great but take a look the commissions that I paid just in the last couple of days ago for a small account that I manage. If I had to do it with lightspeed, it would be 4 times higher. Those stocks fills are not sub fills of one order. They are separate orders. Check out, I bought 3 ADI PUT and I was paid 18 cents. With light speed, it would cost 1.80. The difference is $1.96. I bought 10 AMZN shares and I was paid 2 cents. It would me $1 in LightSpeed. The difference is $1.01. Oh my GOD, you are making me bankrupt

Regards

 

[hajimow]

You also see, unlike others that claim "It SEEMS that IB is cheating......." I give you hard proof. BANG. I post data. I also do not care my orders are executed in dark pool, swimming pool, bathroom or what, I want them to be executed fast and for the rate I set them. May times I also get price improvement with IB paying me the commission (proof is above). I am also nobody for IB in terms of customers. I also did not call them to promise that I would a good boy for them and overtrade to make them happy to be in their special customer's list.

 

[Robert Morse]

Your rates are great but take a look the commissions that I paid just in the last couple of days ago for a small account that I manage. If I had to do it with lightspeed, it would be 4 times higher. Those stocks fills are not sub fills of one order. They are separate orders. Check out, I bought 3 ADI PUT and I was paid 18 cents. With light speed, it would cost 1.80. The difference is $1.96. I bought 10 AMZN shares and I was paid 2 cents. It would me $1 in LightSpeed. The difference is $1.01. Oh my GOD, you are making me bankrupt

On Sterling, Real Tick and Silexx, I can offer both Option DMA and SMART routes for the same cost. When you use option DMA for single leg orders, you would get the same $0.85 rebate on BATS with us, but our $0.60/option rate is lower than the $0.70 rate at IB AND, our rate includes the OCC fee of $0.05. That makes our rate $0.15/side lower. And, if you use our SMART routes, they avoid the maker taker fees on single leg and spreads for all but the cash settled options. IB charges $1.00 to use DMA. Our Spread orders go to and are posted on the COB of one of the option exchanges. IB does not do that. They keep their spread orders in an internal option dark pool not part of the price discovery on the exchanges, until their server believes you can get an execution.

For my clients, as they get volume discounts, they are not made to earn them each month. IB makes you do that. Again, if you are happy there, I don't expect you or anyone to switch, but or option rates are lower.

My clients are not no body to me. They are important if they are an individual account with $30K or a hedge fund with $30mm.

Bob

 

[hajimow]

On Sterling, Real Tick and Silexx, I can offer both Option DMA and SMART routes for the same cost. When you use option DMA for single leg orders, you would get the same $0.85 rebate on BATS with us, but our $0.60/option rate is lower than the $0.70 rate at IB AND, our rate includes the OCC fee of $0.05. That makes our rate $0.15/side lower. And, if you use our SMART routes, they avoid the maker taker fees on single leg and spreads for all but the cash settled options. IB charges $1.00 to use DMA. Our Spread orders go to and are posted on the COB of one of the option exchanges. IB does not do that. They keep their spread orders in an internal option dark pool not part of the price discovery on the exchanges, until their server believes you can get an execution.

For my clients, as they get volume discounts, they are not made to earn them each month. IB makes you do that. Again, if you are happy there, I don't expect you or anyone to switch, but or option rates are lower.

My clients are not no body to me. They are important if they are an individual account with $30K or a hedge fund with $30mm.

Bob

Thanks for the posts. Actually I like competition and I have a friend who has an account with Lighspeed and he is very happy. If someone says Lightspeed cheats, I would laugh and that would irritate me as mush as it would do for IB. I would say to such a person you cannot trade successfully and that is the problem.There are many more good brokers out there and that is the matter of choice which one you are comfortable with. If my account gets very very big, I would prefer to trade using multiple brokers to go in disguise in many trades. I completely understand the problem of spread or multi-leg orders. One leg usually gets filled at the market and for my account setting, I do not get rebate on one leg of spread orders and I am fine with it.
IB's regular option rate is not 0.7. They have different rates based on premium. It goes lower to like 0.2 for lower premiums and even zero when you close a position at 1 cent.
Now let's not compare and fight between IB and LighSpeed. The post was about cheating and wrong doing of IB which I disagreed. My response was why do you care how IB fills your order? My view is that stock market is about manipulation, insider selling, cheating and that makes it more exciting and no way how your order gets filled is a part of it. Big wins in the option trading come when you know the direction of the stock and even you go over ask to make sure you would get filled because you know a few hours later the price would pop up big time.

 

[luisHK]

For my clients, as they get volume discounts, they are not made to earn them each month. IB makes you do that. Again, if you are happy there, I don't expect you or anyone to switch, but or option rates are lower.

Indeed, with IB one needs to fork an extra 600 bucks on the 300k first shares every month to get back to the second tier (actually more than 300k shares as the tier change is validated at the end of the trading day).
A poster here claimed it's possible to contact IB to get rid of the lower tiers altogether if they do enough volume. Can't comment there as I never tried.
As of cheap rates with IB, it doesn't look that cheap if one sends large orders without adding liquidity. Send a MOC order for 20k shares at the beginning of the month and it costs 100bucks.
Lot of good things to say about IB though, at retail level and for international traders, their range of products, overall commission and funding conditions are hard to beat (and non retail brokerages offering a bigger range are not a walk in the park to get onboard ime)

 

[Shadetree42]

They will raise margins when you are squeezed and liquidate you at the worst price.. they internally have the first option to take the opposite side of the trade so just go figure how that system of incentivizes is set up to screw ypu

If you're maxing out your margin and involved only in illiquid names, you're getting exactly what you deserve..

 

[Shadetree42]

This post is rational, you admit IB has issues but they're the only game in town. Fair enough, you didn't feel the need to personally attack anyone who dared criticize them or make shit up about how great they are. That behavior is the baffling part I'm questioning.

I will note that I once thought as you did, then I took the time to do some research and found that's just not true. For a tiny subset of people who need to be able to simultaneously trade Mongolian treasury bonds, Australian iron ore futures, and options on South African gold mines in an account of less than $25,000 that may be the case. For anyone else if you look at the products you actually trade you can find several options that beat IB on all the counts you mentioned, but the right broker is going to be different depending how and what you trade. I think a lot of people needlessly put up with IB's crap for the availability of a wide range of products that in reality they'll never avail themselves of.

Find me a broker that offers better stock comms, better borrow avail., better borrow costs, better margin loan rates, and better free algos. It's a sincere request. If you have a single broker that beats IB on all five criteria, I'm interested. If not, there is no reason for a retail trader to make a move.

 

[sprstpd]

I guess we just have a different view of the world. In my world I expect my broker to maximize value for me on fills. If I put an order in at .37 but it's possible to get a better price I'd like to expect that to happen. If IB is doing something that benefits themselves to their customer's detriment, they deserve to be called on it. It's certainly possible that bots could move the market away from me, but in my world I want to be the one who calculates the risk of that and makes my decision accordingly of where and how to shop my order, not IB.
In your world you apparently you have authority figures you don't question and IB has somehow risen to that level. A customer should apparently just be happy that they have the privilege of being a customer of the great and benevolent IB, who always knows what's best for you. It's just a difference in philosophy I guess.

I would be furious if my broker's algorithm allowed fills to "get away" because it was trying to mess around trying to save a penny on a limit order. If you were so intent on getting a fill at a lower price, then put the limit in for that price. Easy.

As for authority figures, maybe spout your bullsh*t somewhere else.

 

[Sig]

I would be furious if my broker's algorithm allowed fills to "get away" because it was trying to mess around trying to save a penny on a limit order. If you were so intent on getting a fill at a lower price, then put the limit in for that price. Easy.

As for authority figures, maybe spout your bullsh*t somewhere else.

Like I said, different outlook in life. Take it easy.