Is my broker's favorite market maker looking at my keystrokes?

Just talking out loud...Another thought. It's Jan 15th 2021...Third Friday of the month. We know that much activity is going on the days before (options filling/closing). If I was the preferred MM for IB/Robinhood/Tastytrade, I would want to know who is uncovered. I can make a lot of $$ by knowing who needs (has) to cover. I could use the triple witching hour to make good money.

You asked for a reason why they would want the info...I'm giving you one.
 
Last edited:
Little known fact-
Facebook and many other websites as well as cell phone providers track and record every single keystroke you make even if you erase before sending.
So if you start texting someone then go back and delete parts of it, the provider still has all the info that you never even sent.
 
Cabin111 said:
No, I am not a conspiracy theorists. Just wondering if the MM is allowed access to my keystrokes, when I am at the broker's website.
More...

You can't be too careful!:D
upload_2020-12-10_20-48-39.png
 
Cabin111 said:
No, I am not a conspiracy theorists. Just wondering if the MM is allowed access to my keystrokes, when I am at the broker's website.
More...
Ask Destiero because he makes seven figures plus, if your making big bucks like him and JC perhaps they might want your good ideas! Did you exceed seven figures in 2020?
 
That's not the point and it is actually not always correct. These days banks are highly interested in the punter space and what is being discussed on reddit. The main reason keystrokes capture and trading on such against client interest is a gross violation of regulatory laws and the risk of discovery is very high and most any serious broker would stay away from playing such games.

volpri said:
No they aren’t. You, nor I, nor all the retail traders put together interest them very much. We don’t have enough money. It is big institutions trading a big institutions. We are chicken feed for them not worth them scratching around to find a few grains.
More...
 
Yeah, but they don't trade against you based on those key strokes in one of the world's most highly regulated industries. Not that enough shenanigans are played in our industry but this would be a big no no if discovered. Technically possible, risk wise, with almost absolute certainty not happening.

Clubber Lang said:
Little known fact-
Facebook and many other websites as well as cell phone providers track and record every single keystroke you make even if you erase before sending.
So if you start texting someone then go back and delete parts of it, the provider still has all the info that you never even sent.
More...
 
Do brokers track your keystrokes? Yes, at least for the E-trade when I tried. The easy way to tell is open up Chrome Dev Tools (press F12), and watch the network traffic as you type. It's not really that bad, because it was for things like autocompleting the symbol name. It didn't send the order size, or when I moved the mouse.

That said, it would be trivial for them to do this (and in fact, there are some big companies that have done this, like LinkedIn). I don't get worried about it though, because my assumption is there are a lot of privacy folks watching this kind of stuff, and would make a lot of noise if brokers started doing it.
 
While all this sounds like a tin-foil hat thread, your broker/market data vendor can store and sell your behavior data to third parties or use it for their own advantage if specified in the terms and conditions.

One example of this is Trade Ideas. They very clearly specify that they can offer the service only if they are allowed to store customer behavior data. I asked them about it and they said that what they collect is "what symbols are clicked on, where our users are located, how many Brokerage+ trades are made and other similar data."

While a user in EU would be able to opt out from having their data collected, I'm not so sure there is such specific legislation in other parts of the world.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top