Anyone recommend a broker for emini's with a platform that runs well alongside Realtick? Do retail traders these days have the same direct access capabilities with emini's as they do in stocks with ECN's? (last time I traded a future this was only available to those with globex terminals). Anyone wanna bring me up to speed? Thanks.
I trade futures within RT thru my broker. Direct linkage to the cme with L2 style data. The futures are cleared thru a different firm but transparent to me. Cleared by Pax clearing. My two cents worth and have a great weekend. Bsulli
yeah, terra nova has some kind of deal with Real tick. I've never used either so can't reccomend. As far as direct access goes, you are going to get filled at the screen price. So when you hit the button on your computer, it goes to your broker and your broker sends it to the exchange. Now, if all that moving at 186.000 miles per second isn't fast enough for you, then you can pay a couple of grand as month for direct access to the exchange. But, with 56k dial up and AOL, you are going to get filled at the screen price anyway. And, if you use limits, you can send your order in by carrier pigeon and no matter how fast somebody elses connection is, they still have to wait in line behind you if you decided on the limit price before they did.
lets say you're long, and you think it is about time to get out. Maybe its offered at .75 and the offers look strong and steady with a size of 64. But the bids at .50 look weak, only 34 and dropping fast. You still have time to think, push the button, get in line and get filled at 50. You won't see all this on the IB quote board, but if you have decent quotes (and you can get decent quotes for only $10 a month from the CME) you will catch on. As for Real Tick, I don't know. Maybe they are decent quotes. But it doesn't matter if you are basing your decisions on anything other than bid ask size, because you are still going to get filled at the price on your screen. No matter what quote service you are using, or what broker, on the globex, something would have to be drastically wrong for you to encounter anything remotely resembling slippage.
Let me make this perfectly clear. If the price on your screen says 75 offered 50 bid, and you put in a market order to buy and you don't get filled at 75 then you need to stop trading and figure out where the problem is because something is wrong.
Here's the point I'm trying to make. Lets say you have lousy quotes, very slow, everybody in the world has faster quotes, and your broker has very slow executiion, the slowest in the business. If you are getting filled at the price on your screen, what difference does it make?