i am fairly new to active trading and am currently with cottrade but shopping around for a new brokerage that has great execution. i am leaning towards ib. my main question is: how often do they either go down or slow down so much that its the same as being down. scottrade is probably down about 2-3 hrs total a month and very slow about 3-6 hrs a month in my opinion hence my looking for a new brokerage. any advice would be appreciated. also, is it true that you can customise a program and run it within your ib logon and have it automatically generate trades for you. thanks, dex
IB rarely goes down. In the 8 or so months I've been with them, they've gone down once or twice. It was for a short time. I think it was for about 20mins during the least active part of the day. Their executions are among the best if not the best. However I only trade futures and Forex. So I can image that their smart routing for stocks is just as good if not even better. And yes, you can automate your trading using API. It's an interface that allows other programs to enter orders through TWS (trader workstation). Anyway, you just can't go wrong with IB. I'm glad I opened an account. I have nothing but good things to say about my experiences.