I experience the same slowness using ARCA and I try to place the majority of my trades on ISLD. Can someone tell me why everybody wouldn't want to use ISLD? They are the fastest, they are the cheapest, and they offer cash based liquidity rebates. I wish 100% of all NASDAQ trading was done on ISLD!
Two reasons: 1) Odd lots! (frequent problem with posting ISLD orders) 2) Lower liquidity rebates (0.0011 ISLD versus 0.002 for ARCA) for those providing liquidity. Despite these two downsides, I prefer ISLD as well. I send all of my non-marketable limit orders to them. -Eric
Inca has a better rebate, thats why, and also because Island shaves often get rathe r ridiculous....although ISLD is a much better ECN than many. Arca offers no rebate and is slow as hell.
Maybe I should clarify... Since my trading is automated, I am able to execute a large number of trades every day. For example, today I executed 1600 tickets, at least half of which were posted limit orders on ISLD. Out of these 800 filled (or partially filled) ISLD orders, I probably had at least 50 odd lot partials. While this may not be a huge percentage <~10%, it still adds up to a lot of partials at the end of the day. You end up playing the 'pass the odd lot' game with other traders and market makers. -Eric
Basically ARCA has NO speed. It's really sad. I wish they would improve and I can only hope the merged ECNs will adopt REDI technology.
Speaking of ISLD/ARCA, seems like it would depend on which platform you use that would determine the flexibility of certain ECN's. For example, Realtick shares same parent company as ARCA, and on the RT order entry system, ARCA is the only ecn where you can hide size, adjust (bump) prices, and place stop orders. There must be other platforms where similar features would be available to use on ISLD -- can anyone name some? Also, I am currently with a brokerage that licenses Realtick, yet they seem to pay a high fee for use of ARCA (translating to 1/2 cent/share additional), which makes my negotiations for an all-inclusive per share commission that much more difficult since I prefer using ARCA almost exclusively. Can anyone name a brokerage that offers Realtick+ARCA at very competitive fees?
fwiw - i just closed my realtick account - trading through ARCA is ridiculous at best, the high fees and slow executions hardly make it worth it. Trade with IB - their smart orders can't be beat, and since their recent network upgrade, it has been flawless. (knocking on wood) I now use esignal for quotes, and everything is great.
Why can't ECN's listen to it's customers and be like ISLD? They are good at what they do and that is what makes them successful. They don't try to be everything to everyone. ARCA could learn from that. If they did, I would give them massive order flow.