Poor Fills on Firstrade

[Robert Morse]

Your profile does not say where you live. If you are trading equities from NJ, well under 50ms is reasonable. If you are overseas or further away, you need hosting or an AWS desktop near NJ to get under that. We can’t control your internet path to our servers in NJ. But once your orders reach us, we are very fast.

It depends on your style of trading. It can range from under 1 millisecond to 50 milliseconds.

 

[minmike]

Are all your orders CME? Exchange supported spreads? Es options get filled better than nasdaq.

 

[Con1991]

Are all your orders CME? Exchange supported spreads? Es options get filled better than nasdaq.

I am trading options, not futures.

 

[Cabin1111]

I've shared this before...Disregard if you've read it before. I'm a light trader in options (covered calls/puts, manual).

With options, Fidelity will let me route. If it's a heavy traded option (think Apple), I will go with their route...PFOF, hoping for price improvement. If it's lightly traded, I will use CBOE. They work good for me and no sneaky moves.

Both Schwab and Fidelity will not allow me to choose a exchange for buying or selling stocks...I'm small, and they need to make their money. I usually choose a midpoint, if I want to move fast. If not, I'll wait to let the market come to me (something my dad taught me in the 1970's)!!

Also Schwab will not allow me to route for their options.

It is what it is for the small trader...

 

[TheDawn]

I recently opened an account with Firstrade and began trading mostly option index spreads, for capital efficiency. I mostly aim for mid price on entry and exit, and while I have had a few NDX and SPX trades fills at mid price on entry, I have yet to be able to exit a single position using mid price. And this is over the course of several weeks now. Extremely frustrating and disappointing.

I am wondering, since Firstrade is a payment for order flow brokerage, I realize this can affect order execution. Does this perhaps explain my poor results thus far? Anecdotally, are option fills better on the like of Schwab and Fidelity, Tradestation etc.

Thanks for any input

I answered your question in your other thread as well. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/question-about-options-execution-method.380589/ Please try to open just one thread for the same question. Thanks.

 

[Fain]

I recently opened an account with Firstrade and began trading mostly option index spreads, for capital efficiency. I mostly aim for mid price on entry and exit, and while I have had a few NDX and SPX trades fills at mid price on entry, I have yet to be able to exit a single position using mid price. And this is over the course of several weeks now. Extremely frustrating and disappointing.

I am wondering, since Firstrade is a payment for order flow brokerage, I realize this can affect order execution. Does this perhaps explain my poor results thus far? Anecdotally, are option fills better on the like of Schwab and Fidelity, Tradestation etc.

Thanks for any input

Where are you orders being executed? that's a pretty big piece of the puzzel you are leaving out.

 

[poopy]

Where are you orders being executed? that's a pretty big piece of the puzzel you are leaving out.

They're not.

He thinks he's entitled to be filled at mid and when he is (filled) he doesn't realize it's bc price has moved against him. There is no broker that will satisfy this nutter.

 

[Fain]

They're not.

He thinks he's entitled to be filled at mid and when he is (filled) he doesn't realize it's bc price has moved against him. There is no broker that will satisfy this nutter.

Most investors complaining about bad fills never say where the orders are executing. It's frustrating

 

[poopy]

Most investors complaining about bad fills never say where the orders are executing. It's frustrating

I trade a lot of equity vol and I don't notice any improvement, one venue over another. He's arguing broker's fills when it has nothing to do with the broker.

 

[Con1991]

Where are you orders being executed? that's a pretty big piece of the puzzel you are leaving out.

I'm not entirely sure where Firstrade sends orders to be executed. I know that they clear through Apex, with Citadel being the main dealer apparently. Also they list 5 exchanges, including CBOE.