Large shops offering DMA besides IB

tonyf · Aug 13, 2020

Schwab and Tradier are often mentioned here but they both sell order flow to HFTs.

I am wondering which online discount brokers besides IBKR offers Direct Market Access to the major US exchanges?

stochastix · Aug 13, 2020

You will get burned by HFT on the exchanges too except not as badly on IEX.. the crumbling quote indicator is interesting, lightspeed does have what you need tho

tonyf · Aug 13, 2020

stochastix said:
You will get burned by HFT on the exchanges too except not as badly on IEX.. the crumbling quote indicator is interesting, lightspeed does have what you need tho

Not a big fan of Lightspeed I must say (I know they are sponsors of this site and I actually like the guy)
Looking for alternatives really.

stochastix · Aug 13, 2020

There is Lime, they own lightspeed, but its not cheap.. very good rates though. Yeah, Bob is a good dude

tonyf · Aug 13, 2020

By the way, are options order flows being sold like equities as well?

I can see that IB and Schwab both charge $0.65 per contract when Tradier offers an eat-all-you can model for $30.

Same Lazy Element · Aug 13, 2020

tonyf said:
By the way, are options order flows being sold like equities as well?

Of course. Option flow is the juiciest of them all, cause you get all the good delta plays on much wider spreads and a lot of it is non-marketable limit orders.

tonyf · Aug 13, 2020

Same Lazy Element said:
Of course. Option flow is the juiciest of them all, cause you get all the good delta plays on much wider spreads and a lot of it is non-marketable limit orders.

Why the $0.35 per contract then? https://brokerage.tradier.com/?_ga=2.95483420.1297210147.1597348920-1369433242.1597348920

Same Lazy Element · Aug 13, 2020

tonyf said:
Why the $0.35 per contract then? https://brokerage.tradier.com/?_ga=2.95483420.1297210147.1597348920-1369433242.1597348920

I don't know, other retail shops (hearsay, as I don't trade options in my PA). Maybe it's a less common product so they can get away with it? Or maybe they give you a directed option in addition to their SOR? FWIW, 35c/c for directed flow (which is not PFOFed) is very reasonable.

tonyf · Aug 14, 2020

I have just started another thread specifically addressing that point: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/0-option-trading-mega-thread-brokers-list.348774/