Robert, you are completely wrong regarding Timber Hill. IB was set up to level the playing field. OTC orders would trade at one vol off floor and the banks would lay off their trades on the trading floor at a lower price. Institutions trading OTC were getting ripped off as there was no price transparency. Furthermore, the mathematical models and computing power which Timber Hill pioneered and invested in, were becoming a commodity. It made sense to take advantage of the global network we built to service institutional and retail brokerage. Timber Hill didn't get to see IB retail flow. In fact, in the early days we didn't service retail at all. The systems were designed to put on institutional trading desks. That has been stated countless times before so I'm not going to rehash it (and that isn't hearsay as I was on the Timber Hill desk from the early days). The fact is, TH had a large market share and any increase in any option flow would benefit TH as trading increased. Looking back, it really was a no brainer, create price transparency, give your clients a fair chance to make money and all ships rise in a rising tide. Now, if you want to talk AMEX and the ridiculous and arguably corrupt specialist system we can do that.
Is it true that for IBKR even when my commission is $500/month and with cross-connect, I will never able to get better at Tick Data because of 250ms tick data snapshot?