Maybe not in US equities or US equity options. But you can certainly send a buy and simultaneously a sell limit order via IB's API and both reside on IB's server. I am talking currencies here. Please be specific what is not possible unless I missed details in OP's question and he already specified which asset class he is talking about. If you infer he looks to market make options from his username then ok...
The only US exchanges you can't make two sided markets on, as customer, are the option exchanges. You can get around that by filing as a "professional customer". As a Pro-customer, option exchanges charge you a higher fee, you lose customer priority but you can compete with market makers. IB still does not allow pro-customers to make two sided markets, which is not typical. I believe this thread was about equity scalping. I know of NO restrictions for customers related to two sided markets. 1245
My understanding was this thread to be about making two-sided markets in the specific context of being an IB customer. So I am still kinda confused by your comments. Are you saying there are no external restrictions (other than on the options side) for retail clients to make two-sided markets but that it is IB who imposes such restriction? I can positively claim to know that IB does allow to submit limit buys and sells simultaneously in the spot currency markets (via IDEAL PRO). And what do you mean you lose "customer priority"? US options exchanges go strictly by price-time queue priority regardless of whether you are categorized as "retail", "pro", or "market maker" (fictitious classifications, just used to make a point).
The option exchanges allow customer orders to go in front of broker dealer orders. That is why the refer to it as "customer priority " on the exchange fee schedule. The exception is a trader that enters 390 orders per day on average. Those customers must claim to be a pro-customer. If you want to make two sided makers on these exchanges, you can claim this status if you choose, but that puts you on parity with BD orders. BD can be on parity with customers on those exchanges that have DESIGNATED PRIMARY MARKET MAKER (DPM). The exchange recognizes these DPM as directing order flow to the exchange and allows them to take a large % of the other side of the trade, matching with others on the book at that price. Ont the AMEX they call it a DMM and they get a minimum of 40% of the trade even with booked customer orders. For that privilege, they pay a fee for order flow to the firm directing the order flow. I can't speak for the person that started thread. It was just my impression that it was an equity issue on IBs API. IB has shown in the past that they are sometimes more restrictive than the exchanges. I can't tell you that is because of Timberhill. I think it is an issue of operational risk. They would rather program their systems to protect them from being fined than match ALL the exchange rules in their system. 1245
I would directly disagree with many of your statements, made. A hft firm at most any of the U.S. equity exchanges never loses queue priority if their price is equal or better than the one of any retail customer, followed by time priority. Every hft firm is considered "pro". I am not going into defining who is a broker dealer and how "designated market makers" are treated at which exchange because this is not the point of this thread.I used hft firms as an example to represent "pros" but feel free to replace that with any other hedge fund, bank, or what have you. Clearly, no pro loses queue priority just because they are pro and a retail order enters the book, unless such retail order deserves queue priority according to price-time priority rules.
same with options exchanges. No retail gets queue priority over a pro. Period. I do not know much about "designated market makers" status (ad that is not the topic under discussion anyway) but 99% of pro accounts are not market makers and they certainly are not disadvantaged vs retail accounts.
you are again linking and delving into "designated market makers" which was not the topic here. Fact remains that pro accounts are in no ways disadvantaged over retail accounts even in listed equity options markets when it comes to price-time queue priority in the order book. Please do not post incorrect information unless you can back them up with facts. Suggesting to become a designated broker dealer/market maker just in order to post simultaneous bids and offers is, I strongly assume, something OP surely considered and is well aware of before he asked the question.
There's no problem with equities at IB; there is with options and I think it's a business decision and not a regulatory one.