Lightspeed vs. Interactive Brokers

[surfer25]

Quote from Barbaris:

I am a daytrader. There are 5 min and 1 day. I like trading pennystock and several stocks from NYSE. The tape helps me to determine big players and feel a trend. If I do not see real deals I cannot indentify strategies of these players.

I am not sure what you think you are seeing with IB, but for daytrading stocks they are perfectly fine. If you look at the time and sales, you will see almost every trade. If you trade with them for a while and check your fills against the time and sales you will see that the info is almost spot on. Of course you should use a different charting service along with time and sales, because IB's charts and time and sales presentation is cumbersome at best, but the feed is fine.

You can easily use IB market feed fed into a solid charting program or DOM to trade for a couple cents per trade all day long, although the commissions would eat you alive.

 

[Barbaris]

Quote from surfer25:

I am not sure what you think you are seeing with IB, but for daytrading stocks they are perfectly fine. If you look at the time and sales, you will see almost every trade. If you trade with them for a while and check your fills against the time and sales you will see that the info is almost spot on. Of course you should use a different charting service along with time and sales, because IB's charts and time and sales presentation is cumbersome at best, but the feed is fine.

You can easily use IB market feed fed into a solid charting program or DOM to trade for a couple cents per trade all day long, although the commissions would eat you alive.

I mean to say that charts are not enough for trading by style. I need in live tape. As for me I have to see how deals execute. Sometimes I trade using only chart IB completely meet my requirements.
Commission less than 0.005$ per share is acceptable for me furthermore I agree to pay 250$ monthly fee for quality T&S and Level II including full ECN books

 

[FrankSlaughtery]

Quote from brutusmaximus:

I pay currently 0.40 @ LS (options) but since I like to scale in and out of trades I hate the $1.00 minimum ticket charge.
With the old system in 2010 I paid $2219 commission , YTD I am already over $ 2700 - this sucks.

how'd you swing that? call up ls and say "i do volume x what rate can i get?" or did you just ask for a better deal and 0.40 is what they said?

 

[brutusmaximus]

Quote from FrankSlaughtery:

how'd you swing that? call up ls and say "i do volume x what rate can i get?" or did you just ask for a better deal and 0.40 is what they said?

the problem is not the $0.40 - it is the $1.00 minimum ticket charge - that change has trippled my commission expenses compared to 2010

 

[skunks]

Hello guys. I didn't have an account with other brokers, I trade with LightSpeed only. I like it. But what about commissions - I want to warn/ask you about the following fees
except $0.45 for 100 shares:
Tran Fee = $0.36 (varies) for Sell side of a trade.
Add'l Fees = ~ from $0.2 to $0.3 per each side of a trade.

Does IB have those fees? As far as I know their FLAT pricing includes all into that $0.5 per 100 shares. Am I not right?

(if anyone is interested I can give more details about those fees from my statements)

Thank you

 

[Catoosa]

You are correct on IB's "all-in" fee plan. IB also has financial strength and is well managed to provide the best in protection of clients funds.

 

[skunks]

I'm too lazy to compare the fees I've got with IB's cost plus from their page, I find it too complicated. Maybe someone can give a practical comparison on their own statements. Is it cheaper then LightSpeed or not?