I will be moving over to a different broker shortly, and I will have the ability to directly route my orders. If I want to set up pre-defined hot keys for trade orders, then how should I choose which route will be best most of the time for my specific stock or ETF? Let us say my scenario is a simple market order of 1,000 shares of QQQ. Is there one route that will be better than another for a specific stock/etf? Or is it always determined only in Level II data in that split second by looking at the various offers? Is it best to just leave a hot key routed with the proprietary algorithm of the broker?? Thank you for any help.
Do smart routing for a month, then route to NASDAQ (or wherever) directly for a month. Compare results. It's imperfect, but there is no perfect way to compare.
Im also looking to change brokers. I was currently looking at lightspeed. You mind sharing who you were going with?
All, there was a new pattern of calls today from customers of a large online broker. They are active, high volume customers of that online broker that were using the free equity commission offer. They were told their volume was taking advantage of the system where they offer price improvement by directing those orders to equity MM. These clients were not asked to stop or trade less, they were asked to leave. We at Lightspeed/Lime cater to the active trader. We also do not offer those routes on Lightspeed Trader, Sterling Trader Pro or Realtick. Contact me directly if you had this issue. My email and phone number are below.
Make sure your getting ECN Rebates if you use limit orders. Intelligent SmartOrders like IBKR and LightSpeed are superior than using a direct ECN non-intelligent ARCA, NASDAQ, BATs or EDGX market order. I've made 100,000s or day trades over the years. Seen almost every mistake.