Question about bid/ask fills

A

AshanD

Yesterday I put in an order to short SPSN at 6.83. Today I was filled at 7.19 which was much better than I thought it should have been since even the open was 7.01. I emailed my broker and he told me they use the middle price between bid/ask for papertrading accounts. I asked why not use the real bid ask and he said this:

"As I mentioned, the MARK is the mid price between the bid and the ask. We use this as default in paperMoney as you never want to only buy the offer and sell the bid as this gives you no edge or price improvement. In fact, in real market conditions, oftentimes you can get filled at the mid in very liquid securities. Thus, we believe it is the correct measure of price."
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Is the part about getting filled in-between the bid/ask in liquid securities true? I've never heard of that and it doesn't make sense to me actually.

I'm suspicious that this paper trading platform is way inaccurate since I think I "should" be negative on that SPSN trade (open was 7.01 which should have filled me, close was 7.15 and I was short. Instead entering at 7.19 makes me positive on that trade)
 
Some simulators are better than others.
A simulator that always fills you at the midpoint of the bid/ask spread is not one of the better ones.
 
The broker wants to build up your confidence so that you trade with real money and the broker can collect commissions.
 
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