Arca Redi Slk

Hey There,

I would love this post to spark some dialog having anything to do with REDI+ SLK & ARCA. Forsure there are a ton of us using ARCA.

I scalp using Redi+ ..and it is really sucking as of late. I used to be able to get instant fills on marketable limit orders and market orders. Now there is a lagtime(usually a second or so) where I have to wait for my order to show up. I am on a T3 line.

Check this out....thick(several MM&ECN) on the inside bid and I hit it with a limit sell 500 long using ARCA proactive....they fill 100 shares then show the remainder of my order locking the market(for about a second or 2) before finally filling the rest. I don't get it. Another example: Again I use ARCA proactive to sell long on the bid to the lone market maker only this time I get no fill, only a lock of the market for almost 20 seconds before I finally get a fill. Nothing else(prints) was going on at the time. I won't even talk about all the times that I was slipped a few cents(or missed totally) on my limit or better orders.

My fills were fine prior to around the time ARCA became an exchange(less than a year ago). I am using an older version of REDI becasue I like the linking function that the high/low alerts provide. Will Tipco version and the smart router entitlement remedy this? I am REDI to @^%$can the whole platform and change brokers. Anyone have any suggestions as far as how I can fix what I currently have, or lemme know what broker out there provides fast, reliable quotes and execution.

I am really not here to complain, only to get back to the kinds of fills I know I should be getting.

Thanks a lot,

Fellow Scalper

 

If the problem is Arca, does the broker really matter? Do you get the same balked service when you use another route or technique? I'm not skilled enough to figure out the bottleneck without a little more experimentation. Good Luck

 

Yeah, I really am not sure if it is ARCA or something else. I have never used SOES. All the other ECNS are not going outside their own book to fill me regardless of marketability. I know that INCA with the FIX connectivity can get you a smart router as well but I am not sure if I can get it with my current broker...or even what the deal really is with that. My broker is not very helpful at all when it comes to anything like this....kinda like they are playing dumb, hoping to avoid the situation. I would think that they are the people that really should be in the know. Then again most are really just there to collect commision with minimum effort. If anyone else out there has great fills and quotes and platform functionality, I would love to hear about it. I trade in SF.

Thanks

 

When you use ARCA proactive, or otherwise known as outbound service, their router should send you out through SOES (BTW - it is no longer SOES (been like this for close to a year) it is SUMO, or supermontage). This is a fact of ARCA routing - you can check their website.
THeir can be different reasons why they are locking the market, when another ECN or SIZE (a supermontage order) or a MM is there:
1. Maybe you are displaying as your user ID only to you, and it appears you are locking the market. This is how their product works - it shows as u5**** or u6**** or u7**** or whatever. This means you are "working the order". Can you confirm this?
2. You confirm that you are not just displaying your user ID to yourself, you are indeed locking showing ARCA to the street. In this case, their is some problem of them not reading the quotes, since ARCA logic should never post while stock is bid / offered (they will not lock the market while another party is the NBBO, if they can trade with that venue).
3. The broker you trade through - whoever provides the software to you - is not eligible to trade with an ECN or even SUMO! This is common. The broker you sign up with may not have agreements set up with the party that is displ;ayed there, therefore, ARCA cannot route there, and has to represent your order (by posting).
4. Bad quotes - the quotes you see are not even there. This is common, through REDI plus - I hear of stuck quotes often.

In all of the above cases, i would recommend contacting a helpdesk you have access to so you can explain the situation. The time of the order, who you saw and your price is important for their research.

As far as REDI plus goes, and using ARCA outbound, or proactive, there are quicker ways. Many other software providers offer direct acccess without having to route through ARCA - in other words, your order is going through ARCA all time, and they are a middleman! Why not see a MM, and go there directly, as opposed to having ARCA do it for you and probably marking you up for it?
ECN consolidaters provide this direct routing. Many exist.
Hope this helps.

 

I think there is an order type for ARCA that goes to the ECNs only. You may want to check that out and it may give you better fills. I don't have Redi up right now, so I'm not sure which, but if you're with SLK, you can call them on Monday and they'll tell you.

 

When I was using Arca the ecn only thing was called arca now.

But if you go back and read some old threads here some systems trader guys were discussing the speed of ecns for their orders, some guy did computer tests and determined arca was the slowest of the important ones.

There was a response that arca's matching function takes time. That was agreed but some guy talked about the processing time and everyone who used a lot of ecns agreed arca was a slow. the old redi ecn was much faster. The when arca merged with redi, the arca rep told me that there was an internal debate about whether to use windows or linux servers. I think the linux ones were known be faster. I never heard how the debate was resolved from the rep because arca became so bad most of us stopped using it. Now this was about a year ago but it sounds to me that arca has never solved their problems.

Additionally, you may have been rotated over to one of their inferior server farms without knowing it. That happened in the past too.

do some homework order routing is very important and can make a difference.

 

You might also want to check out the SIGMA routing as it might be faster.

 

OK, be sure that you are distinguishing between ARCA (the ECN), and ARCA (the give up for MM's using the Archapelago "give up"). I had quite a long conversation with Jerry Putnam a few months back (CEO of Arca) about this, and they were going to make it so that there was some distinction between the two. I don't trade the Naz very often, and haven't checked back into this recently.

As far as "instant fills".....If Isld is instant via Redi, then your connection should be fine.....the problem may be the back end. If you're having trouble all the time, check your connectivity (but you knew that).

Just trying to help!

Don

 

don is right about this one. There is a difference, but the point is if you can get a fill from isld before you take your finger off the key, I think you know then that it is arca that is slow. If getting to isld is slow you may have multiple problems.

 

I complained about what I perceived as the unfair advantage that Redi+ provides to its house (SLK), in all the delays that were noticed by myself, other traders who accurately described the inordinate amount of complaints and delays, even on market orders. We sat on that order desk, and saw one trader after another get up, slam their chair into the desk and fly off into a tirade about how the system was so rigged.

Clearly, if more than one trader from both technical and other backgrounds were able to trace the fault and flaw of their trading losses to inordinate delays and other suprious problems with either selecting REDI as the ECN or using Redi+ software to preference another ECN, and not being able to execute marketable orders in a timely basis, even being on T3 lines. We had a bull session after trading one day and the conclusions were deemed as the delays which hold your order for over 1+ seconds before being able to be cancelled, for example, provided undue advantage to the other market makers (notice, not traders or other day traders).

We felt that although SLK tries to order match from their extensive crossing networks and order book, what this did was basically give away the advantage the trader had to sitting at the desk to the opposing broker without getting back either speed of execution, better prices, price improvements or otherwise.

Change the direct access software and if the broker doesn't offer another route to market, look into other brokers that are not beholden to the SLK process (REDI+ software).

Andover and Assent and however else they call themselves by, through remarketing their services created the Hammer platform in direct competition to systems like Redi via SLK. Evidently someone is benefiting, most likely from higher registration fees, from the advantages that Redi+ offers, and it doesn't seem to be you, the natural customer. So its logical to conclude that the advantage is probably going to the other larger customers or market makers.

Let's face it, sitting across the table from these traders, who are not using their capital is tough enough, imagine sitting in a childs' chair behind these huge trading desks and never being able to see the table, and then being duped into thinking you're not disadvantaged.

Broadway Trading was said to be a direct customer of ISLD, and didn't charge its traders any ECN markups when they routed through ISLD. Whether that's true or close to true, ISLD continues to be one of the best ECN's to execute on.

Get serious, demand fair treatment and be ready to walk your account across the street to another house.