IB, OH, eOptions Broker Questions

Quote from uptickk:

It’s a new year and I am finally getting around to addressing the amount of money walking out the door via commissions (Should have done this a long time ago!). I primarily trade option spreads and am extremely happy with TOS, aside from their commissions. I am currently paying $9.95 a spread + $0.65 a contract and do 7,000+ contracts a month. I have been looking into IB, OptionHouse, and eOption as their commissions are less than what I am currently paying.

From reading various posts I know that IB has fees for canceling and/or modifying an order. I have read some conflicting information that this may or may not be applicable to spread orders, can anyone provide any clarification? This is a large issue for me as I do a decent amount of modifying orders while trying to get the best fill. I can ignore the fact that IB auto liquidates positions without sufficient margin as my trades have set risk. Additionally, I know IB charges for data but I believe it is a nominal amount so unless this is inaccurate it can be ignored as well.
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IB charges 70 cts per contract (less if it's 5 or 10 cts) and I think 50 cts if over 10,000 per month. There's probably a lot of cancels in the $9.95 you're paying. They offer an execution credit and AFAIK, it's higher than the cancel fee so you might find that the cancel fee has less pinch than you think. Only you know how many orders you cancel (versus fills) and that may be the key to whether it's a better deal or not. Also, free assignment/exercise.

IB also has an unbundled commission rate for equities. ETF's. warrants, futures which can be even lower, depending on whether you add or remove liquidity. Don't know if they offer it for options yet.

No data fee if you generate $30 per month in commissions.

Since details change over time, check their web site out for more up to date info.
 
IB doesn't charge cancellation fee(exchange fee) for
-equity spreads
- index option & index option spreads.

IMHO, IB is way better than TOS/eoption interms of commissions. You can keep the TOS for all the tools/research and use IB for execution etc
 
I am basically going over the same search process so here is my 2 cents...

I have excluded IB for a simple reason: their trading platform is stand-alone so you have to install it every freakinwhere (I use many different computers in different locations). They do have a web-based platform but you can't even do spreads on it... I am not legging in, no way.

I am curious: have you considered trade monster? Their commissions are decent and their platform seems nice... Any reason to not consider them?
 
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