JR, for the record, I recall printing out 30+ pages of very long PM's from you and discussing some of the issues/questions/comments/suggestions you raised with a number of staff internally within the firm. while I may not have given an explicit reason why we don't route to the regionals, stating that you were ignored by us is absolutely false. I do think our PM's reached a point where they were unproductive after questioning the competence and honesty of numerous people within our firm. As for the regionals, I've been in Asia now for 11 years and am no longer an expert on US routing. Thus I'll leave it to someone else if they care to explain why we do not include the regionals within our SMART routing.
the usual. three sides to every story. my side . your side and the truth. should we take a poll? could IB explain how the trade through regulations will affect their clients?
Def, for the record, your recollection of our exchange of messages, from one year ago, is not accurate. I also think your recollection was unfair and insulting to me. You continually promised, over a period of months last year, to read my order execution suggestions, and supporting evidence, and to comment on them,and then, if you found them valid, to make a strong argument to IB management in their favor. I put great effort into organizing my suggestions and evidence for you. You continually delayed for months, and then finally abandoned your commitment without fulfilling it, because you said you were too busy. You never responded to my suggestions or expressed your opinion on them. You never suggested, to me, that my suggestions were unproductive, or not valid in any way. You simply delayed and delayed for months, and then you never responded to them, and you apologized for being too busy to do what you said you would do. You finally offered, as a consolation prize, that you would instead pass my comments on to others. What a colossal waste of my time! If you want, I can provide you with copies of messages you sent me, so you can verify the inaccuracy of your present recollection. I had every reason to believe that my suggestions were ignored . If this is "false", as you say, then this is news to me. One of my suggestions was that IB route to regional exchanges. If you had not ignored my suggestion, then you should be able to explain why IB does not route to regional exchanges. You just admitted, however, that you don't know. IBSoft, in this very thread, posted a message stating that IB would consider adding TrackECN. This was the logical occasion to respond to my previous post about routing to regionals. IBSoft, as the chief developer, could have explained why IB does not route to regional exchanges. But IBSoft simply IGNORED the suggestion. I think that you and IBSoft both have the right to ignore me. And it was totally reasonable for me to believe and to state that my suggestion had been ignored. So I think you should apologize for your accusation that I falsely stated that I had been ignored. I don't think that I should have to defend myself against the type of unfairness and inaccuracy you presented in your posting. I think it is you, and your employer, who should be explaining why you are not routing to regional exchanges. And if you don't know anything, maybe you shouldn't say anything.
just because I am not an expert on a given area, doesn't mean that I didn't discuss the routing with various people within the firm nor am incapable of thoroughly understanding a topic. you stated we did nothing and implied we ignored your PM's. we didn't. I distinctly recall spending hours my free time over a weekend and on a few nights researching many of your comments. as a result your post hit a nerve, if I offended you, please accept my apology. Now let's move on and bring this thread back on topic.
Def, You never told me, until your last post, that you or anybody else spent time on my suggestions. Now that I know, I sincerely do appreciate your spending the time, especially if it was on your time instead of your employer's, which your post seems to suggest. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding. As for IB's reasons for not routing to regional exchanges when they provide certain immediate automatic execution, I suppose those reasons will remain forever shrouded in mystery.
jim: Are you certain about the auto-ex? If I recall correctly, trying to hit a regional via BRUT goes through ITS, which has to respect the trade-through rule, and doesn't solve anything I think. I also seem to remember hearing about problems with orders being submitted to PHLX or maybe CINC not being able to be reliably cancelled or something like that. If someone who has access to regionals via another firm would comment on the current state of things, it would help. Perhaps posting a RFI in the prop or order exec threads will get some info. As far as TRAC, I recall them having a weird fee model, and people complaining about not getting paid. I don't know how/if those problems were resolved. Anyone?
SMART does not route to regional exchanges or any ECNs that are not listed with IB. Thus Attain, and TrackEcn cannot be executed through IB. While it is true that certain ecns like BRUT can cross orders with other ECNs like Track, IB has disabled full ecn functionality for all of its routes. Thus that feature is not available to IB users, who can only post to the the ecn books. I have repeated asked IB to enable full ECN functionality, since every other direct access broker already does, but have yet to receive any firm answers. Def: if you are reading this, maybe you could check into the status of very much needed upgrade to Ib's routing system.
Or maybe only allow BRUT/ARCA to route to another ECN if the inside quote is a destination that can't be reached directly. I doubt this happens often enough to make a difference in overall execution costs. I'll also note that BRUT in particular has problems when it attempts to route away (for listed stocks) and doesn't get an execution or cancel ack from the away exchange. It ends up holding your order, sometimes until you call them and get them to shake it loose. This seems to happen mostly in the 15 minutes preceeding and following the NYSE open and close, respectively, and seems to be related to BRUT not knowing when it can send orders to various places, or routing to those places operating inconsistently during those times. I've also seen it happen during market hours when BRUT is having problems, but it's a lot less frequent.
Followup: It is still under the consideration, but because of its low volume TrackECN will unlikely add significant value to the Smart routing. TrackECN only trades 0.5-1MM shares a day, whereas e.g. BTRADE's volume is 40-50MM and INET's more than 500MM a day.