Your last point is not an issue because price-time priority ensures that customer order is filled always prior to the broker order at the same price, given the broker did not front-run the client.
really? And you also wanna randomly switch brokers? Use Broker A for entries today, Broker B for exits today, and use Broker A for exits tomorrow...? How much more complicated you want to make your life? Fact remains, most any regulated broker with 99.5% certainly currently does not front-run electronic orders. Period. Any tailgating is welcome. What else you need?
Exactly, that is how the big boys do it( most have a long list of different brokers) .....you trading noob LMAO Complicated ??? How difficult is that to switch brokers ?? Toss a coin , you Mor.. you need me to toss the coin ?! LOL
The top hedge funds certainly do spread their trades out amongst various brokers. There are many reasons for this, but I think that keeping the strategy under wraps is at least one motivator. There's two extreme situations here that make the answer to the question of "WILL your broker follow you" obvious: 1. You've got an edge so great that there's going to be people trying to reverse engineer it like mad. This actually happens -- I knew a guy personally who said that the people at his firm did this -- although he said in the end they decided that these clients were probably just lucky, and they didn't pursue it much further. But it's assured that there are some brokers, or just a subset of the people who work at certain brokers, who WILL TRY to reverse engineer or follow what you've got, if it looks great. 2. The second extreme is, you have no edge whatsoever. In this case, your situation is irrelevant and you should probably just quit trading. Unfortunately, far too many people fit this category, yet won't admit it, chalking it up to "psychology" or "money management (even though the real psychological battle they're facing is that trading is just a money pit for them, and that they'd be better off financially doing something else with their time, I mean really almost anything.) In this case, there's no incentive for the broker to "steal" your strategy -- an unscrupulous broker just wants you to keep on trading to generate commissions, and could care less about the random noise that is your strategy; they can just kick back and watch your equity flow to their personal income as you trade yourself into the ground. But the truth for many of us lies somewhere in the middle, and so we've got to be cognizant that either individuals or the entire brokerage itself may try to follow or reverse engineer what we're doing. Yet it's not worth focusing too much effort on this, as there's only so much you can do, and the real battle is developing/executing a good strategy in the first place.
Really ???? In the cleaning department !? And you dont known that hedge funds spread orders between different brokers ?! LMAO You are a joke
they use different brokers for different reasons. We already established in lengthy detail that OP's broker with almost absolute certainty would not front-run any orders and it reverse-engineering strategies is much much harder than some claim.
dude, don't change what I said. Read carefully. You are a little angry man who had someone step on his big ego.
Who questioned that? I never claimed that hedge funds would not use different brokers. I do not agree with your points, where is why: 1) Sure, even sell side brokers that offer DMA algos run profitability stats of their clients. Most program and block trading desks do, too. Some clients seem to have insider information and look to offload size to sell-side facilitation desks which is why such banks keep tab of profitability. Such clients cost the bank a lot of money. Certainly fair to keep an eye on. But the next step to reverse engineer a strategy is a giant one and much harder to do than most anyone imagines. I never heard of anyone at any "non-systematic" trading desk wanting or attempting to reverse-engineer a strategy from orders. Its impossible I would claim. And OP seems to make clear he is talking about manual execution not an automated strategy. 2) This is irrelevant to your point (you tried to list points why it sometimes pays to split orders) May I suggest to go a step back and read again in what situation OP is in? He is not a hedge fund, not a large client, he simply is asking whether small cap stock orders can be copied or whether the broker can follow profitable accounts. Yes he can, but I already showed clearly that it can only be in the client's interest if the broker piggybacks you. Front-running is highly illegal and could a broker do it? Sure, a broker could also steal all your funding and run. So, I am not sure what other points you try to argue here? Bottom line here is: If your broker front-runs you and you have a hunch then gather some evidence and you have the law clearly on your side. If you feel someone is disadvantaging you then I would much rather investigate exactly what order types you use and which exact venue you route to and/or how your broker routes and whether payment for order-flow is involved and in what capacity.
There is nothing complicated (excuse of you)about spreading entry and exit orders over 2 different brokers, you simply can't admit that the solution is simple as that , that you had not thought about it ,....grow some brain....small ego