why are there no other brokers compete directly with IB?

[trend2009]

lightspeed's margin rate is 5-6%, IB is 1.5%. lightspeed also has a higher commission rate than ib. lightspeed is certainly closest to meeting my needs among other brokers, but still a few miles away if compared with IB. I will park some of trades at lightspeed in the near future when my new model is ready. I have paid IB close to 2 million commission so far, but did not feel IB appreciate my business.

 

[cruisecontrol]

lightspeed's margin rate is 5-6%, IB is 1.5%. lightspeed also has a higher commission rate than ib.

You do a lot of very consistent volume don't you? Try negotiating and see what you can get.

 

[RedDuke]

Which broker do you go to?

FC Stone

 

[terr]

the new broker can directly copy those IB features, even same API interface. is that hard?

IB's API is horrible. No one in their right mind would copy it.

 

[trend2009]

IB's API is horrible. No one in their right mind would copy it.

I see more and more brokers start to use websocket/restful. if I send 10k orders, and have to monitor them in realtime, can I do it via websocket/restful API?

 

[jtrader33]

if I send 10k orders

Sorry I can't be more helpful to you, but I do have a question if you don't mind:

With that many orders outstanding, how do you avoid all your bids getting filled in an instant if there's a market shock during regular trading hours (e.g. major terrorist attack, sudden natural disaster, etc.)? If you're going through retail brokers, I'd imagine there'd be no way to cancel your orders fast enough. Not trying to give you a hard time - I'm hoping I can learn something from the way you manage these.

 

[terr]

I see more and more brokers start to use websocket/restful. if I send 10k orders, and have to monitor them in realtime, can I do it via websocket/restful API?

Well, 10K orders is a lot... let's say 500 bytes per order... that's a 5M download to get all of them. Granted today bandwidth is cheap. But still.

But in general - why not? Any reasonable API would send you all the orders in a few messages (probably paged) at start of session, then will only send you updates, so you would have to maintain the updated list yourself. So that big 5M download would only happen once and would not interrupt your trading in the middle of it.

 

[trend2009]

Sorry I can't be more helpful to you, but I do have a question if you don't mind:

With that many orders outstanding, how do you avoid all your bids getting filled in an instant if there's a market shock during regular trading hours (e.g. major terrorist attack, sudden natural disaster, etc.)? If you're going through retail brokers, I'd imagine there'd be no way to cancel your orders fast enough. Not trying to give you a hard time - I'm hoping I can learn something from the way you manage these.

that is the worst scenario which i hope never happens.

 

[def]

Running a global brokerage is a huge undertaking. Anyone can route an order but there are serious costs involved - not just on the routing side but increasingly legal and compliance as well as operations (corp actions, stock loan, settlement), treasury, regulations and financial reporting which differ and often contradict each other from jurisdiction to jurisdiction - especially in regards to how client money is handled. Then there is treasury, client service, tech support, languages, financial audits, software updates and maintenance. Street wide testing, Contract updates, Data re-distribution and more. Frankly, it isn't as simple as it seems. And don't forget capital requirements which are critical. What many may not know is that a large number of brokers utilize our services to route into their foreign markets as we can do it at a much cheaper cost relative to them doing it themselves. We are unique in that we have been doing this a long time, have been fortunate to have great stability with senior management and personnel and have the ability to think long term.

 

[syswizard]

I have to say that my experience with the IB's API via their Gateway software has been very positive. There's never been a glitch or problem for the past year.
However, that being said, I need to move away from IB due to their oppressive margin requirements for the E-Minis. Currently NQ is a whopping $17,600 per contract and ES is $13,200. These are in excess of 10x that of other FCM's margin requirements. I've begged them to drop the margins, but they refused.
I am now considering AMP using either the Rhythmic or CQG execution platforms. Any advice greatly appreciated.