Originally posted by esc_trader
Just saw the (new) Echo fee schedule on their site. They charge the ECN fees, but say on their site that the "direct access" to the ECNs is superior. They even point out that firms that do not charge the ECN fees (Implying Bright here I think), suffer from slower executions because they try to match against their own book first (REDIPlus trying to match to REDI first?)
Can anyone, from their personal experience, confirm/deny this?
Basically, if ISLD is on the bid and I'm selling, do I have to wait (more than 1 sec. = bad, more than 5 sec. = very bad), while RediPlus tries to match with the REDI ECN?
Also, Echo offers a .001 rebate for adding liquidity. Sounds Interesting. They claim this is a "profit center" for many of their traders. Anyone from Echo have any insights on this?
ISLD beats NYSE & NYSE+ many times over on listed, and also makes premarkets/postmarket trading possible.
Also, you pointed out an essential flaw in SLK being one of the largest clearing agents, then offering their huge inventory for internal cross match vs sending the orders out of their house to other clearing agents.
Let's view this:
SLK has dozens of brokerage firms of all composition and sizes (Hedges, Mutuals, Proprietaries, Institutional, Floor and Specialist accounts, etc.). Hence the natural objective of yielding additional profit from self clearance or similar objective.
Redi+ is their trading platform, and has been so sufficiently trashed on this forum that you only need search on "redi" to see how thoroughly out of date it is.
Redi is also an ECN (see above component mixture of their inventory origin).
Internal match was sold to the "investing public" as a "superior" means of "obtaining best bid/offer".
The reality is far from that based on the comments from the traders who have shared their personal insights, experiences and questions. Basically its detractors out weigh its supports by a factor of over 3:1.
Anytime, in fractions of time, anytime an order whether of size or 100shares is held up within a computer matching exchange instead of being posted publically and shown immediately on its tranch (level within the Level 2's & Level 3's) then the marketplace doesn't know about it. Hence, no one is really aware about your order. Since the "house / SLK" holds that order, you can be sure those customers (including house traders) who are more favored than the average customer / brokerage client, are NOT getting the best bid/offer. Since these customers (us traders) of these brokerage firms / customers to SLK are 2 steps removed from SLK, then
NO ONE REALLY Cares whether or not you're meeting your profit/stoploss goals!
So your comments regarding 1sec / 5sec delays should be avoided at all costs. Redi ECN, well it speaks for itself. Uh, how did they get the money to buy ARCA?
(Hint, take a look at your balance sheets)