The primary reason to change your hosting to HK would be because you have problems with the midnight US reset. Keeping things simple: If your account is hosted in the US then your order goes from your PC to our US hub and then gets sent to Hong Kong hub via our high speed line between US-HK. The HK hub is connected directly to the exchange. If your account is hosted in HK. Then, your order is routed to our HK hub via your ISP. The HK hub is connected to the exchange. The HK futures exchange only supports limit orders. Everything else is simulated, so a stop order will stay on our servers. In regards to speed. Obviously if you are in HK, trading HK, then being hosted in HK will result in less latency in your orders. Generally you are better to be on the hub that is nearest to you, and then rely on us to route your order. However, there are times when it's not a straightforward decision, for example if you are on the US West Coast trading HK. I've also seen ISP's in places like Thailand have faster routing to the US than to HK. In these cases, you may want to do some ping tests to determine it yourself.
Very clear and detailed post. Thanks, Steve. A related query. When a HK-based IB client uses a leased line to connect to IB's HK hub directly, presumably his ES and ESTX50 orders will have the benefit of the IB HK hub's high-speed link to the group's respective US and Euro hubs. However, what about real-time price quotes? Since different servers handle execution and data, will such a leased-line IB client in HK have a very low latency data connection to the US and Europe, too? For example, a good HK DSL link in to US and Europe will still have a latency of between 250ms and 300ms. Should a client use the IB leased line arrangement in HK, will the latency for real-time data be drastically reduced to, say, well below 50ms? Your feedback and clarification would be most welcome, Steve!
You would not gain that much. No matter how fast or big your link is - it's still got along way to go. "Well below 50ms" puts it at light speed - which would be about 43ms from HK to NY. When you measure your latency via ping times, remember that's a round-trip. HK ISPs tend to be very good, and as you mentioned usually range from about 250-300ms - which is a one-way trip of 125-150ms to NY. Now you may save 20-30% using our pipe - but then you still have to factor in the speed of your direct line to our office. Although of course with the direct line you do get the advantage of stability, and insulation from any internet surge peaks.
Good point. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation dividing the distance between Europe and HK by the speed of light gives a theoretical (one-way) ping time of around 100ms. Taking cable signal loss into account probably takes this to over 130ms. Your post really clarifies the merits (and limitations) of a leased line to IB's hub. Thanks again, Steve.
IB has changed my HSI data and stock order server to HongKong server. I have used for 2 days, the data feed is stable, and the order execution is quick. This is good solution to trade Asian area based products. Thank you all for your support.
How liquid are the HSI futures? What are the best hours (West or East coast US) to trade the HSI futures? Thanks
Plenty liquid unless you're punching around 50 lots at a time but even then, you'll get filled quickly. Usually 1-2 ticks wide. don't show a great deal of size on the bid/ask but there is plenty of hidden liquidity. About 80-90K contracts combined trade per day. http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/stat/dmstat/dayrpt/hsif120515.htm http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/stat/statrpt/mkthl/markhighlight.htm