New IB policy for pro accts...

stevet,

I receive quotes from another source. I have both the charting/quotes package and the TWS side by side when I place the order. I can see the Level II (FWIW), time and sales and everything else I need from the other package. So to answer your question...No, I don't want anything in the way of quotes from IB. If my other service is wrong and I trade thru TWS based on that data, I'm stuck with what I get and I would never blame IB for that.

On your suggestion of a "customer license" scenario. The "pro account" problem is what precludes this from being simple. In addition to individual and IRA accounts, I have an account set up for the corporation. The corporation's business is far from having anything to do with securities. Since the NYSE defines a pro account as a non-individual, I am now a pro according to them and most brokers. The problem (IMO) with the pro customer is that they may now disseminate data to others. I am the only trader on the account and manage it 100% like a personal account - it's just company $$$. If I were a trading operation, I could theoretically take the quotes I receive and display them on a network for many additional users/seats. I believe the NYSE feels that many pro accounts do this and that may be the reason for the high charges. I guess it's too much trouble to discern who's disseminating and who's not from the NYSE standpoint. In this scenario, the company may have 1 license for many people.
 
Wilzo,

I had a brief email discussion with a senior guy too...can't recall his name...but it was very brief. I hope the process is changed by the Steering Comm or whatever authority needs to act upon it.

The reality of the situation is that because of my scaling techniques into and out of stocks - and option trades, I make a lot of smaller trades. The savings vs a $10 broker are enough to still make it worthwhile to pay the exchange fees each month. I just take issue with being forced to pay for something I don't want/need.

Besides being cheaper than the rest, I have another more philosophical reason for staying with IB - I don't think this has been said here. I almost feel compelled to give them my business because of the low commissions...because they allowed retailers to trade for such low prices. It's almost like IB's commission structure was the one that everyone has been waiting to arrive for all these years. I guess I feel loyal to them for doing this for the little guy and that I should reward them with that loyalty by leaving my cash parked there and by trading through them. I've seen IB's financials and they are on very solid ground. I have a lot of respect for what the CEO did in the 70's and 80's and the way he levered that technology into what it is today. They really didn't need to open this up to retailers, but they did. If they want my business and will continue to allow me trade for this cheap, I will give it to them.

I hate to stay negative on them so much, but we need to keep the system fair to the customers.

We just need a few more small adjustments.
 
ktm

"The savings vs a $10 broker are enough to still make it worthwhile to pay the exchange fees each month."

you would be paying the same fees with any other broker - this is not IBs idea - in fact IB don't charge for the emins if you do a certain amount of business - so if anything, on this issue, they are going to be better than other broker/clearers

if you are doing big volume - you could get much better rates than IB - but i do agree that whoever is behind IB and their rates is a genius

all the other clearers just consider the retail trader a schmuk who is going to lose, so they want to get as much out of you as they can - even $10 is a ridulous amount to expect someone to pay and make money, but i guess they would be charging even more if it was not for the competition among the heavy marketeers

IB has it right - charge as little as feasible for small accounts, so that good traders can come through - make money - trade more volume - keep trading - and therfore pay more brokerage in the long run and raise liquidity in contracts and also bring in more traders who hear you are making money

i do think IB should have a lower rate for high volume traders - otherwise they will lose the business that they initiated through their reasonable rates - but that is up to them - but they alone have seen the light and the future and the potential powerhouse of tretail investors from all around the world!

re your point about profesionals distributing data - if that is what they are worried about - that would be theft if you are not allowed to do it - they should not make honest people pay for the crooks - who are these small minded people who come up with this argument for overcharging for data

these exchanges should get their act together and concentrate on promoting stock dealing - and one way is to provide cheap data - somewhere in their organisation is an idiot who has decided that exchanges have this great hidden asset in data ownership and distribution - they should focus on their main asset and business - where do these guys learn business - out of a magazine?
 
I just got an email from the person I was corresponding with at IB. They are going to separate market data from trading, but it may take a few weeks to program. Once that is done, professional accounts will no longer be required to subscribe to ANY data. There will be a charge of $3/month for account
maintenance reduced by any commissions paid in that month; essentially free if you trade at all during that month.
 
have you considered - what happens if you lose your data feed for the charting - you won't have a double check - i wonder if a few nervous occasions like that will cost a lot more than the fees you pay - but i guess as u r paying a lot more than retail - you have already figured that out - and it is worth for you to lose the data feed
 
stevet

If our main datafeed goes down, our trading is severely hindered. Fortunately, the datafeed we use is very reliable and rarely goes down for long. We also maintain several brokerage accounts and can get basic data through many of them as backups. Additionally, for active NASDAQ stocks, the ISLD viewer can be used in a pinch. If a catastophic disconnect from our prime datafeed were to occur, I'd just use it as an excuse to take the day off (after closing all our positions, or at least placing stops). However, over the last 14 years that I have been using this primary datafeed, it has never been down for more than a day+, and is rarely down for more than 5-10 minutes. I've had more downtime due to neighborhood electrical outages than to datafeed issues.

As far as TradeStation Securities is concerned, their data feeds both their charting and their order entry - it is all one platform, hence one data fee.
 
Wilzo

hi,

do you know if their emini feed is a chart data feed or a globex feed - i am assuming in the case of eminis - the feed for the trading platform part of tradestation is globex and chart data for the charts?
 
Futurestrading is not integrated with TS6, it is webbased ( LindConnect® ).
TS6 does nothing more than give you an IE-style browser window for futurestrading.
 
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