I dont have direct access, but when I went to speedtrade.com I noticed that DA traders have to pay a routing fee, that happens to be more or less depending on the ECN. If you pay .003 for a routing fee, and .003 commission, on 1k shares, thats 6.00 right there, 12 round trip. I pay 14.00 round trip at Scottrade. 7.00 for unlimited size. I dont know about other brokers, but it seems even to me. Another plus is with online brokers you dont have to worry about routing, and Scottrade has great fills IMO. The question is: 1. Would you consider day-trading from an online broker?
You have a good observation. However, most DA traders are liquidity providers therefore they actually receive a rebate of 0.002 per share. They do pay the 0.003 ECN fee once in a while when they have to get in or out in a hurry. On average the fee and rebate should at least even out. There are also traders whose entire strategy is based on rebate, and they hardly pay any ENC fee. The fill quality of DA vs. non-DA is an interesting topic. Anyone got experience on that?
I use speedtrader.com as my broker. There commisions are very negotiable depending on how much you trade.
i started with scottrade and still have that account because I _love_ the elite platform they have. I got an IB account 4 months ago, and the experience is totally different - I would say my orders execute faster on IB and I have access to more markets and products. If you do a small lot size(under 1000 shares), IB is a no-brainer. I wish I would have had them earlier - I spent over 2000 USD in commissions in january on the scottrade account!
does IB have a flat rate like ST does?.. As you increase size, that 7.00 is going to be a good value.