I was curious if you have ever dumped a Brokerage (My Track) or data-feed provider you found to be either nasty or rude on the phone? There were several hags at one brokerage who bothered me and data-feed providers some that treated me like dirt, changed over to someone new quickly and they wondered why each quarter they were losing market-share, some businesses are inept!
Robert, why do some brokerages treat women badly? They got vicious with my partner a few years ago and so did the data feed company even though she knew more about their product than they did. Which data-feed company do you use for your firm and are you a clearing house yourself?
Did you mention you have traders who trade options for ECN Rebates? I would like to try something like that because I churn lots of weeklies using different routes and some routes get filled faster than others, that's a fact. Here's a weird trade I had last year, I am long a stock via options in several different brokerage accounts with routing. I buy 500 contracts of a wild stock with stock option volume 100x its normal volume. I route via CBOE 300 contracts at $4.40-$4.50 (Market is $3.60 x $4.10 stock is moving wildly and frantically up) while I post the rest on AMEX and BATS and Citadel. CBOE has a print at 8000 contracts at $4.60 and my order get's filled with that consolidated print, all 300 contracts got filled at $4.60 pre-arranged trade and the other 200 options on AMEX, BATS, GMNI and NYSE and Nasdaq just sit. Finally 50 of my AMEX are gone at $4.40 and BATS and Citadel are still sitting. I cancelled those orders and the Market at $4.20 where BATS and Citadel raises to $3.90 x $5.10. Soon it's $4.70 x $6.90 and moving fast, I put contracts out on CBOE and get filled instantly at $6.50. Why did my order sit on BATS and Citadel's GMNI, NYSE routes and how did I get to cancel a stock option that had moved way past my order?
I've been in the business since 1981. Many women around me were treated with little respect by the other traders. I can't tell you why they felt that was OK, it's not. I have never noticed a female client treated that way. That's a new one.
The broker neutral trading platforms have their own data centers. For automated traders, they can use whomever they want. Activ Financial was been one we have dealt with.
Wow, I'm not sure even if I had more details that I would know what happened. I can tell you that the orders you route to some exchanges, because of Reg NMS and best execution rules, might get re-routed. EG. NBBO is 4.00/4.10. I go to the CBOE and bid $4.10 for 100. However, the CBOE is only offering 10, but the AMEX has 50. My order will buy 10 on the CBOE, then get re-routed to the AMEX to try and fill the order. If the 50 is still there, I'll buy it and the rest of my order might now sit on the AMEX. The AMEX might then re-route my order to ARCA if there are options offered there at $4.10! Why, because the exchanges don't allow crossed markets. I'm not sure what really happened here.To answer your other question, YES, we offer both DMA and SMART routes. The SMART routes are not really "smart" as they are used to avoid exchange maker/taker fees on equity options by routing to a MM 1st. The order ends up on an exchange, rather than staying in an option dark pool, but you can't choose which exchange. With DMA, you can and will have the opportunity of rebates if you add liquidity.
Yep, I did so very recently. The broker was terrible and then wouldn't refund my full account when I tried to leave. It took weeks and some angry emails to get my money back from the broker.