Dustin, Took a look at the AB Watley site, at first I was a little excited. Then I saw this: http://www.abwatley.com/frames/frames_ep_flatfee_fees.html What's the deal? 1 and 1/2 cents (ECN fee) plus the "flat fee" for Instinet? I pay half that right now. And a 1/2 cent exchange fee for NYSE!!! And this is on top of the "flat fee." C'mon. I've heard of some fine print before, but this seems pretty bad. I may be doing my math wrong, but it seems like IB and other penny a share all-in commission deals are still better, please do tell me if I am wrong. -Jim
Jim, The only traders this will benefit are high volume traders. I'm doing about 1400 trades per month, or about 1.5M shares. At that rate a per share broker like IB ends up costing about the same as everyone else. I currently pay about $15-20k/mo in commissions at Cyber. At AB Watley I will pay about $10-12k/mo ($5k +ECN/EXCH fees) after all fees. As for the fees you were talking about here is a comparison between AB Watley, Cyber, and Terra Nova. As you can see AB's fees are in line with everyone else's. AB Watley / Cyber / TNT ========================= ISLD*= FREE - FREE - 0.0025 REDI= 0.0055 - 0.002 - 0.055 INCA= 0.015 - same - same ARCA= 0.005 - same - 0.0025 BRUT= 0.005 - same - n/a BTRD= 0.005 - same - 0.008 NYSE= 0.005 - same - same AMEX= 0.005 - same - same
Dustin, IB would only cost $7.50 per 1000 shares. or 1,500 trades(1000 shares a piece) x $7.50 = $11,250 per mth IB charges "NO ECN fees".
Point taken. After a brief stint of futures trading with IB I decided their software wasn't for me. Personal preference I guess.
I have used Watley's Ultimate Trader II for three days now. So far I'm very impressed overall with the system. Here's my first impressions: Pro's: -Stable servers. I have been running Cyber along-side UT II and haven't had any data loss problems with UT II, while I lost Cybers data a few times. In fact I wouldn't have even known that my Cyber data was frozen unless I had UT II to compare with. -Stable software. I have had no lock-up problems yet while running Raven/Cyber/Qcharts & UT II. -This software is set up for hotkey traders, and set up well for it. I have always preferred point-and-click but now I have to try to adapt. Con's -As a point-and-click trader this software feels funky compared to Cyber. -Redi fees are .0055 compared to .002 at Cyber. I'm having to use SuperSOES instead of Redi at AB to keep the fees down. Will add more later, that's all I can think of right now.
That's interesting. You have to wonder how reliable the broker ratings are. If you look at ABWatley ratings, there is nothing but negative regarding stability, trade executions, etc since they switched to a proprietary platform.
Executions are comparable to Cyber. I think these days execution is pretty much the same amongst all top-tier Direct Access firms. SuperSOES is awsome when trading liquid stocks. Aranha, since Watley only charhes a maximum of .90c for a SuperSOES execution you could do millions of shares per month and hardly pay anything compared to any per ticket or per share broker. The question of liquidity would arise, but that just depends on what you are planning to trade.
Dustin, The problem is just what you mentioned: Liquidity. Sometimes the volume may be with an ECN or MM....then I would go back to that old question: ECN FEE'S...and all those cents per share system. I'm looking for a Flat Charge, no matter where my execution goes....ECN, MM, Super Soes.... Also, Thanx for clarifying my doubt regarding execution speed. Question: Between IB and AB.W, what do you have to say? As far as I know, IB doesn't charge ECN'FEES...that's a good thing. What's your overall opinion about these 2? Thanx Raphael Aranha p-s: Since I've joined this Discussion Site, I've seen that there are many things to learn. SO, If I say anything stupid, please DO tell me....hehe