The introduction of the market data fees was just a way for IB to charge an inactivity fee under the pretense they have to pay the exchanges for data. How come they didn't charge anything before? how come they still charge 3 bucks a month with no quotes ( which is what exchanges charge for THEIR quotes as you know, not $10 as IB charge if you do want IB quotes which can be at times different from the exchanges quotes! )? The reality is that all online brokers and the online world in general are feeling the pinch of the slowdown and look to save every penny they can. Its sad but at least please IB stop the BS about the cost of the quotes that has to be passed on to us !
IB, also eliminated the Market Depth feature for US Stock Options. Dunno if this is a bug or just a change in the way they do business.
wonderluck, i've seen a few posts from you insinuating that IB does not provide certain features to benefit the firms prop trading division. These calls are totally baseless and false. I'm not sure what the deal is behind market depth. Send a message to ibmgt asking about it. On another post you infer that IB doesn't have presets to allow you to send buy orders on the bids or offers on the asks. Perhaps one day this will be offered. If you take your logic further, perhaps IB should remove the hotkeys which let you hit an active market. The biggest potential profit from IB customers would be to take a peek at the order flow when routing orders. The fact that IB does not do this should tell you something about the company. Many requests for additional features have been added over the years - many of which came from these boards as I have been forwarding things to the appropriate people. If you look back at how IB has addressed these requests in the past, you'll probably convinced that the firm has no ulterior motive. Hope that helps to clear the air.
Hey Def, Thanks for your message. Before I respond, let me just say I'm sorry that my recent posts have had a rather derogatory tone towards IB. That's not productive, and does not really reflect my overall opinions about IB. On the whole, I am extremely happy with IB, and I have continuously recommended them to nearly everyone I know. I've seen the very many significant improvements, which has turned IB into a direct access leader. The post about the market depth was the only one (I think) where I suggested that changes were made to benefit timber. I don't really think that's the case, of course, but I'm completely confounded about the market depth situation. The last information I had was that it isn't available on certain Nasdaq stocks, and that it will not be available for non-professionals. This doesn't make a lot of sense, though, so I'll do as you suggest, and email ibmgmt.
wonderluck understood, no problem. FYI, i already am trying to find out about market depth on options. I'll post if I hear anything significant. As I trade for Timber Hill, I am a bit sensitive to the question of the prop side taking advantage or benefiting from customer order flow. The system routes to the best price available on any exchange. Right now the only benefit that Timber Hill may see is if it is posting the same best market as someone else, in this event, the tie is broken by routing to the exchange where timber hill is making the market. As a client, you'd probably prefer this anyway since we are one of the firms that actually honor our quotes and also most likely it means the order will be routed to the ISE which is a fully automated system.
I have to pay market data fees for my individual account, just like everyone. I also have a joint account, and IB confirmed twice that i don't have to pay data fees for this account, because the fees are per customer, and not per account. This morning i had to subscribe for the data fees for this joint account. I send an email to IB , and now they replied that i do have to pay the data fees. Is this a sudden change of the policy to charge the fees per customer, and not per account ? BTW, my co-accountholder also has an individual account, for which he pays the same data fees. Observer.
What is $10 in the whole scheme of things? I ve traded with a number of other firms and by far IB has delivered superior service even compared to most brokerages private client groups. IBâs platform is standard for the industry, granted they have had a few market data problems over the last few months. The issues seem to be fixed. Even if you were having problems logic would seem that you would put some sort of redundancies into your system. IB is not a babysitting service like an E-Trade, many clients are sophisticated institutional level investors. In general, if you are not capable of trading at that level than IB is not for you.
observer, if your accounts are linked, i do not think they should be charged. However, each account must "subscribe" to the quotes. I think this is for regulatory purposes - i.e. you state that you are not a professional etc. I'm not sure about joint accounts but since all parties already subscribe it sounds like you shouldn't have to pay. Thus, if you believe you are billed incorrectly, send a mail to the help desk to the attention of the accounts department who should follow up on the matter.
Def, Thank you for the reply. You say the same as the helpdesk did, but yesterday they changed their mind. If i check the subscriptions in the customer menus of my accounts, i think the joint account is not linked. I have 3 individual accounts, and these accounts are shown in the subscription menu. My joint account, which has the same username as my individual accounts isn't. How can i link these accounts? observer