You guys have gone pretty far afield, and nobody's hit on it yet: adamchubb most likely has an FA account, and collects a "fee" from one-or-more "client" accounts. It doesn't matter if it's Family or some other non-SEC-, non-CFTC-impacting arrangement, as soon as you collect a fee, the exchanges (and thereby, IB) mark you as professional, and "Bump!" go your data costs. The first time you hear about it is when the cost hits your FA balance, and you go, "Huh?" Entirely reasonable on everybody's part, but to IB for the fact that they can't give that a sentence or two somewhere -- or maybe a tiny, tiny pop-up when you're switching on your FA profile items.... Just a sentence or two!
A professional by definition is someone who trades for other people's money. The exchange make most of its money selling 'data' to 'professionals' in brokers, financial advisors. and each employee pays professional quotes. if you trade your own money, it's a grey area. and it's not technically 'not professional' even if you trade 24/7 and addicted to trading and doing it full time and lose money doing it.--it's not a professional if you losing money. the broker will look at your account and see the log times and your monthly profit. they see you are logged 40 hours a week, and making huge profits at market makers expense===your a professional. BUT if you are losing money you NOT a professional I heard Gold Man Sachs wanted crack down on some two bit prop firm for manipulating the quotes and making too much money off THEM!
cost of doing business. professional pay like $500-$1000 in data, commission fees, desk fees, license fees etc. newsfeeds etc. per month now if you cannot afford to pay $1000/month, either your losing money then get out of the business. that is capitalism, if you cannot a make a profit, quit, exit, don't provide the service or participate in the activity. losing money is a sin in capitalism and anti-capitalism if you lose money. eventually you won't be in business long if you continue to lose money. the bank call the loans or run out cash and force to leave
the all charge the same for quotes real time. the exchange charge the same..the brokers just resell the data. unless your are doing market making or scalping or daytrading ,you don't need 'real time' quotes. delay is only 15 minutes.
I see your point, but looking at delayed data makes me uncomforable—even the IB 250ms delay doesn’t sit well with me.
I think that every serious broker is able to provide solid real-time market data free of charge. These options are imbedded in platforms. If your broker is trying to charge you for these data, than it might be right time to start searching for a new broker
Unfortunately no such thing. I have multiple brokers, and I pay about $500 /month for the data. but you can get delayed data free.