Lightspeed vs. Interactive Brokers

sprstpd · Jul 13, 2011

Quote from d08:

Just when I thought IB was decent and almost had my faith restored.
Today, I submitted a short order to be executed at the open. I got the standard bright green status reading "The order is on the exchange". A minute or two before the open the order was dark green meaning they're attempting to locate shares for short selling.
This has all been confirmed by logs and IB "customer service".
What clearly happened was, a bigger IB client with priority stepped in front of me and I was literally sacrificed.
So you should know that even when it says that your order is on the exchange and everything looks as it should, IB might cancel that order with any reason of their choosing.

I think you are making a lot of assumptions that don't make sense.

JackR · Jul 13, 2011

Quote from d08:What clearly happened was, a bigger IB client with priority stepped in front of me and I was literally sacrificed.

What is the basis of your statement?

IB must borrow the short stock. Perhaps the lender withdrew them because they had an internal customer who wanted to short or the lender put in an order to sell the stock at the open making it unavailable to loan.

Jack

Grandluxe · Jul 13, 2011

Lightspeed borrow list is 100,000X worse than IB

jumper · Jul 13, 2011

Quote from jbusse:

Lightspeed orders are canceled when you exit the trading platform. Interactive Brokers orders remain open according to your day/GTC instructions when you exit TWS.

That's not true about LS. When you log off, a window pops up and asks if you want any orders kept live. If you click the box for all orders or selectively choose which you want to remain live, they won't cancel when you log out.

brutusmaximus · Jul 14, 2011

I would like to transfer my account (6 figures) to another firm :
I am not happy with Lightspeed minimum 1$ per ticket charge and all the other goodies like ADR holding fees and a pretty louzy ``to borrow list``etc.

Here is what I am looking for :

< 0.40 per option contract
0.0045 per share with NO 1$ minimum per ticket charge
I only trade equities

Is there anybody out there that knows of a firm that could fullfill my requirements ?

Barbaris · Jul 14, 2011

I would like to add some details about IB.

Tape of IB is unusable for stock daytrading because data represents changes in Time&Sales is not individual trades

surfer25 · Jul 14, 2011

Quote from Barbaris:

I would like to add some details about IB.

Tape of IB is unusable for stock daytrading because data represents changes in Time&Sales is not individual trades

Which stocks are you daytrading and what timeframe are you using? And by tape, do you mean their market data feed?

It is true that IB's data feed is not tick by tick but is updated every few milliseconds, but I'd be curious how that makes a difference to you.

FrankSlaughtery · Jul 15, 2011

Quote from brutusmaximus:

Here is what I am looking for :

< 0.40 per option contract
0.0045 per share with NO 1$ minimum per ticket charge
I only trade equities

Is there anybody out there that knows of a firm that could fullfill my requirements ? [/B]

Re the option contract. AFAIK no one offers this rate or anything close to it. Lightspeed used to have .50 per car but raised it to .60. optionhouse hada low rate like unlimited cars for 10 but got rid of it b/c people were using it so much (imagine that optionhouse - you offer the lowest rate in history and traders use it to take flyers on sub .10 options that would otherwise be uneconomical to trade due to high commissh). Anyways let me know if you hear of anyone w/ a rate lower than lightspeeds'.

brutusmaximus · Jul 15, 2011

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.

Barbaris · Jul 15, 2011

Quote from surfer25:

Which stocks are you daytrading and what timeframe are you using? And by tape, do you mean their market data feed?

It is true that IB's data feed is not tick by tick but is updated every few milliseconds, but I'd be curious how that makes a difference to you.

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 used Laser before it was fantastic software but I had to quit it because my broker made incorrect margin call. I wasted a lot of time to clarify this mistake without any excuse from the Broker. Now I am in process to open new acct with Sterling Trader but I like IB so they have a huge short list.
I am going to use both.