ITG has very good infrastructure and can handle 1000+ messages a second. But you have to do volume or they don't want you cloggin up their lines. It is second best to your own infrastructure. 1/2 a rack at Equinix, $850. Full rack multiply x 2. Then you need bandwidth. That depends on who provides it, but count at least $400/M. You can't just colocate 2U at these places and do cross connects. No one wants your business. Cross connect to Safety provider $250. Then they charge you again for that bandwidth, about $1000/M. Total recurring cost about $2250/M. You can't do this solution unless you have special arrangements with your clearing firm, since in effect you are not going through their order router and can do crazy things. You could cross connect to your clearing firm, and they all have presence at Equinix, but then you don't have a straight connection to exchange any more. This solution was only a dream for me several years ago. Now it is a reality, but for a small trader, it is not possible. nitro
Tip my cap to you three standouts, speculatus/syswizard/nitro...three of the most positive contributors on ET. I have gained alot from your replies, and learned I have alot more to learn.
I agree. Thanks for contributions. And in the spirit of contribution could someone post a VB code for sterling that would login into test account. Send an order for 100 shares on GE using island. Cancel the order , and maybe one that will get executed and then sell the position at Market. I am sure there are people who have this code can you please shares it, I have been looking for this for some time, any help would be greatly appreciated. I am just a starting programmer so this would help me tremendously and I am sure other people starting out could use that too. Thanks mike
I just called ITG... WOW!!!!!!!!!!! whatever you do, DO NOT call the boston department the lady on the phone is extremely RUDE. Anyway, I asked them about info on joining and they said they only deal now w/ institutions and not retail people. So I lied and said I can show you proof that I do 40,000,000 shares a month. They were like... "well that's very good, but sorry we only deal with institutions"
Nitro, I posted this ? a while back, but no one really knew the answer. What firm out that other than ITG can handle > 500 messages per second? Thanks
I suppose that FIX protocol allows you to transfer 500 messages per second. There are brokerages who support FIX, for example VelocityFutures (only futures) and InteractiveBrokers - to name a few.