I was looking to move to IB but after doing the maths; it seems like other broker with fixed commissions at $3.95, $4.95 or even $7.95 are cheaper if you trade large Chunk of stocks. Ex. 10,000 stock x $ 0.005 vs a fixed commission Is there a maximum commission fee per trade ? Am I missing something ? Asked same question by email to IB and waiting for answer.
That's correct. If you're trading large size on the open or close, you'll be better off at a flat comm broker.
We offer $4.50/Trade max order size 10,000 shares. On Lightspeed Trader, Sterling Trader and Realtick, you get Direct market access and subject to maker/taker ECN and Exchange fees. On Webtrader, you only get one route, a broker route, but no maker/taker fees. Bob
exactly and written correctly. open or close are the key words, at any other time of day execution quality can suffer at a flat rate broker. this statement in no way implies that all per share brokers are superior to flat rate brokers.
With large stock order size of like 10K+ shares, you have to use IB's tiered commission structure and you have to direct route the order to a specific exchange and not use its SMART order route otherwise your commission is going to be through the roof!! And there is no maximum commission cap at IB. It will charge you a million dollars if it can. And don't ever trade options at IB if you can, its options commission is horrible and it does not offer a tiered commission structure. You are better off trading with other brokers for options.
Why do you believe the use of IB's SMART order routing leads to commissions going through the roof? Thank you.
Was advised by somebody from ET that IB's SMART routing does not actively seek for the lowest commission or highest rebates in routing orders no matter how you set it. It still gives priority to price first and only seeks for the lowest commission within a certain price range.
their model is based upon price improvement not on payment for order flow. best executionion is more important then rebates
Hence the SMART routing would not get you the lowest commissions and if you want the lowest commissions, you need to use direct routing. EXACTLY what I said 3 posts earlier. And my personal experience really confirms this too. Conclusion: IB's commission is not the most competitive, lowest among all discount brokers, at least not anymore. And this is before any other fees that IB chooses to charge like inactive account fee, exposure fee and etc.