We don't have any special relationship with IB and we do not interfere with, collect or touch trades. Each user creates their own individual direct connection to IB. Whether you use TWS or IB Gateway when you place a trade through MotiveWave, you're using an IB API . As far as what or how IB charges users, you would have to confirm that with IB directly.
I don't really understand how you can understand modern microstructure and be worried about IB data vs some other data you can afford. If you are not colocated the order book gets updated faster than the data can get from the exchange to you. I am sure there are people on the west coast paying up for data without even thinking about the latency between themselves and NYC and Chicago. I would suggest Market Microstructure in Practice second edition. No way anyone can read that and think you need better data. Most things I read on trading forums when it comes to microstructure is incredibly outdated.
I agree with you on all. However, there are still benefits to a good data feed: Reliability Quality of data Performance consistency Support For some, you don't necessarily need to be the fastest ...
I don`t think you have to subscribe to IB`L2" market data if having a data feed with Kinetic, IQ etc which includes L2. Why should this be necessary? Do i even need a IB market data subscribtion when sending my orders with NT, Motivewave, Esignal, Sierra etc?
Sorry I thought I responded to this @NoiseTraderr ! Thanks a lot for pointing this out b/c I didn't know about the co-location bottleneck! So if a data company (eg - CQG) states that "CQG servers co-located with exchange matching engines" - does that mean I would get the speed benefits even being on the West Coast? I understand the other benefits @qlai mentioned; am specifically just asking about the speed benefit here. Here's the link where CQG states their co-location line: https://optimusfutures.com/CQG-MarketData.php Also, is there anything else to watch out for when a company says they are co-located within the exchange? Like is it binary - either they are co-located or not - or are there degrees of co-location? Thanks a lot for your thoughts!