What is more important than cheap commission?

[nitro]

Nitro,

I don't believe what you are experiencing is a result of IB. When your IB NYSE order goes green, that means its been sent via superdot to the specialist and is out of the hands of IB. Thus whatever the specialist does with this order is up to him, and you won't get any better with another broker.

Yeah, that's what the IB guy told me. _THEN_, will _ANYONE_ on ET that trades anywhere but IB tell me if, on a listed stock that trades 5+ millions shares a day, their bid/offer is displayed if it is the best bid/offer? Or anyone at a prop firm, what is your experience with this? Gene? RTHarp?

On occasion if my limit order is better than the quoted price, the specialist will update his price to reflect my order. However this appears to happen more frequently on thinly trade stocks.

I have no problems if I do this on something like BLB either. But try it on TYC, or GE, etc.

Even if you order is not reflected in the quote, be assured that your superior price will be a factor in your execution. For example if the spread is 40 x 40.25, and you enter a sell order at 40.24, then even if your order isn't shown, you still have priority over all other sell orders at 40.25, excluding market orders of course.

Yeah, that's true - _EXCEPT_ I have tried to get out on occassion, put in an offer,watch the stock trade where I am offering it a million times, (I see it on one of my TS from one of my feeds) and I don't get filled. No matter what I do, nothing worked. I refuse to put in a market order - eventually, I was _LET_ out, a half a point later So I don't know what to make of what you are saying.

If you really want to be seen by the world, you could always route your NYSE order to an ecn such as island.

I haven't tried this, simply because the NYSE is the most liquid place to trade the stocks that I trade (all in the SP500, many in the DOW) and I love price improvements, which I must say, I get alot. But maybe I will try it.

nitro

 

[nitro]

Nitro,

I use IB and have had the same experience with listed stocks(great for nas though). I have never traded listed stocks anywhere else. Do you have better luck having your order show or get filled with another broker or firm? I thought these problems were mostly dirty specialist tricks.

I have not tried another broker, but I am seriously considering it. I am looking at PoinDirex, Andover, TradeStation, etc. I particularly like Andover, as they may have OO orders, have per share pricing and use REDI+ which is what Bright and others use. (Since I plan to be at a prop firm soon, I wouldn't mind getting used to the software - tho I don't know where I will end up, so...)

Magna above seems to like CT, but I do not think that they are geared towards per share. The fact that they use RealTick is interesting though, as they may have OpenBook availalble...[assuming it's useful - I have heard both sides on this, but nothing like trying something yourself.]

nitro

 

[ron2368]

I will get back to the topic of which is more important.

Last year I opened a small acct at IB to test the waters. With my limited trading there I think its super fast and commisions are fantastic.

My main account is with Preferred which I found here 3 years ago. I have a few problems with preferred that are going to force me somewhere else( which I can expand on privately). The customer service at Preferred is very good for a broker. They answer your questions and mostly try to work with traders. Phone calls and messaging is Prompt.

Ib scares me and thats why I dont have much cash there. The commisions are great but beyond that its no-mans -land. I tried to call them 2x during market hours... forget it. So except for that one day a month that you will be on the verge of insanity... the commisions are great. ( I keep repeating that to myself).

So commisions are important, trading is a business and thats overheadbut comfort is important too.

 

[Catoosa]

nitro:

Htrader and IB gave you the correct answer on the actions of the specialist. I look forward and hope for the day when NYSE uses only ECNs and no specialist. The specialist for NYSE listed stock is like having one market maker handling all the order flow on a NASDAQ stock, and you know what that would be like. The specialist holds all the cards for he is the only one who see the order book, he sets the spreads by trading out of his own account, does not have to update the shown bid/offer with the best bid/offer until the specialist allowed time limit to do so has run out, does not show the true size of the market, may complete your trade long before he post the results, tries to disguise the market so he can handle the order flow through his own account rather than matching orders, moves the bid /offer down when he wants to buy and load up his own account and then move the bid/offer up to unload the stock out of his account, and use every trick he has to skim off the bid/offer spread.

As far as other brokers, I have used a lot of brokers and trading platform since 1972. I now have 7 monitors full of trading platforms and broker accounts running at the same time. When it comes to data and charting, nothing beats RealTick 3. When it comes to a trading platform, nothing beats IB TWS. However, IB still needs to make improvements to TWS. The methods you have to use to change the share quantity and share price when using IB's TWS are antiquated compared to the methods use in RealTick 3.

Catoosa

 

[crazy_trader]

catoosa...
wow! have you been trading for 30 years....

 

[Htrader]

Originally posted by nitro


Yeah, that's true - _EXCEPT_ I have tried to get out on occassion, put in an offer,watch the stock trade where I am offering it a million times, (I see it on one of my TS from one of my feeds) and I don't get filled. No matter what I do, nothing worked. I refuse to put in a market order - eventually, I was _LET_ out, a half a point later So I don't know what to make of what you are saying.

One possible explanation is that the stock was just plummeting at this time and your limit order was superceded by a ton of market orders. In times of heavy volatility, the specialist might often have tens of thousands of shares of market orders already in his queue waiting to be executed. A good example is HAL a couple of weeks ago. The specialist opened the stock at 17.95, a huge gap. I saw selling pressure, so I sent 2 market sell orders in. The first block got filled at 17.75, and the second at 17.25!! The second order was sent in like 10 seconds after the first, there was just that much selling pressure. HAL went below 17 in a few more ticks. Thats why I almost exclusively use market orders to exit my positions. In a fast moving market, limit orders might not let you out.

 

[Cdntrader]

Originally posted by alain
I was wondering what is more important than cheap commissions when selecting a new brokerage firm?

Is IB top of the top? Or is there something that is worth paying more at another firm?


alain
(Switzerland)

Yes IB is terrible ...... that is why 90% of the Elitetrader broker threads are related to it.

Think about it.

 

[BSAM]

Originally posted by rtharp
I just had this posted in another post.


Being able to get out of all your positions in seconds in case of hardware failure, a bad internet connection, brokerage software going down and so forth.


Read all of the comments on the broker section on IB and notice quite a few say it's impossbile to reach them on the phone.


So what do you do if you own 5 positions of 5000 shares and the electricty goes out and Greenspan comes out saying something that will hurt your positions????

I pick up the phone call Risk Management by hitting the * key at my firm and say exit everything market now.


Try that @ IB....

Robert

Sky's not falling Robert. Relax. And no, I'm not saying IB is perfect. But, for example, how many folks on this message board will EVER have 5 positions of 5000 shares open at the same time. Much depends on one's style/risk tolerance. Would you not agree?

BSAM

 

[Athos]

Yes IB is terrible ...... that is why 90% of the Elitetrader broker threads are related to it.

Think about it.

And apparently 90% of traders lose money. Think about that!

 

[Cdntrader]

Originally posted by Athos




And apparently 90% of traders lose money. Think about that!

You gonna blame your broker if and/or when you fail?

I see that ebay has cheap mirrors for sale tonight.