IB vs Thinkorswim RE: price improvement

Great news. IB's Oct. 20, 2008 communique announces that IB-SMART now includes the order routing algorithm I proposed and analyzed in this thread.

Recent updates include:

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- Smart routing enhancements, including an optional add-on, Favor Price Improvement, which sweeps certain exchanges for hidden liquidity at more favorable prices, and then checks the dark pools as usual before routing to an exchange;
 
Does anybody here have any recent option execution experience with TOS vs. IB? Since 2009, I am sure much has changed (especially with the TDAmeritrade purchase of TOS ) with the ability of either broker to execute option spreads. thanks.
 
people seem to worry about a .0050 price improvement which on 100 shares is $0.50 while ignoring the fact that IB charges $1 comm vs. 9.99 for TOS, clearly a case of penny wise pound fool. Also, I bet 99% of people on this board are not high frequency traders (meaning 10,000 trades per day or more) so price improvement should be pretty low on their list of concerns. But people like to rant.

also, while TOS has a "pretty" platform, there is no substitute for IB's TWS for the active trader, it may be ugly but it "PUTS OUT". ''

Bottom line, if you invest go with TOS, if you trade go with IB, pretty simple.
 
Quote from MushinSeeker:

Does anybody here have any recent option execution experience with TOS vs. IB? Since 2009, I am sure much has changed (especially with the TDAmeritrade purchase of TOS ) with the ability of either broker to execute option spreads. thanks.

Not sure about price improvement. But apparently IB can fill each leg of a spread independently among different exchanges is a winner to me. The best price from one single exchange as opposed to across multiple exchange can be as wide as 0.03. That's a huge "price improvement" to me.

-pt
 
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