It seems more and more like Primex is a throwback to the specialist system. Can MM's who route through Primex see the book? What is the advantage to us of having a less transparent market????
Primex is designed to suck all the volume from the ECN's and maintain the Market Makers status IMO. Can't see any reason why this would be an improvement over the current system?
The sudden use of PRIMEX is a major step backwards in my opinion. The fills are much, much slower than in the past. I can no longer say that the fills are "instantaneous" on the stocks where its routed to PRIMEX. There is no noticeable price improvement either. Is there a way we can route thru BEST or BEST_ECN and specifically exclude PRIMEX? From what I've seen the last couple of days, PRIMEX is pure garbage.
By the way, I also use Tradestation and I can no longer say that IB's "Best" is faster than TS's "Intelligent" routing. Prior to PRIMEX use by IB, IB was slightly faster on most fills. Now, there is no comparison on the stocks that IB routes to PRIMEX. Currently about 90% of my trades are done thru IB and 10% thru TS, but with this new PRIMEX feature, I will be forced to change and use TS more frequently. Yes, commissions are higher but I will actually save more money with better, quicker fills since TS doesn't route to PRIMEX.
The Primex system is equivalent to a "Black Hole." They are attempting to suck all market participants into their dimension by pulling order flow out of the conventional market, and directing it to their auction process. Market Makers wanting to participate in revenue generated from Primex must commit all of their order flow to "primex"...In order for an ECN to now compete for this order flow it must become part of the system... A few quotes from primex: This unique exposure mechanism helps elicit latent and undisclosed buying and selling interest that is not ordinarily displayed in the public quotation. It's not displayed any longer because it's been sucked into the "Black Hole." Not Most importantly, this includes the liquidity commitments provided by Market Makers. Objective one of their plan is to suck much of the volume from the conventional market by attracting all the Market Makers with revenue sharing enticements. While the primex Auction System is not an ECN Display Alternative, it is designed to complement and work in tandem with ECNs by enhancing liquidity and price improvement available to ECN subscribers... "Turn to the dark side Luke," and you will be rewarded. Price improvement comes from volume, if they have it, they'll have the best prices, forcing everyone to join. This is plan 2, to pull the ECN's in to completely dry up the conventional market. With all their big backers, I'm sure they aren't playing to be just another ECN alternative.
Primex sounds like Primus....I can almost hear them chanting "Here come the bastards..." It seems that none of us can see any advantage to Primex from a prop trader's perspective. It seems that the backers (GSCO) are all for it, though....hmmm...what could that possibly mean?... I know! Since the big guys really want day traders to succeed and enjoy some of the wealth, it must be in place to help us! Man, what would we do without Primex???? I'm intersted in seeing Island's (or any other major ECN) comments about Primex - anyone have any info/links?
I was trading in and out of some of the large cap biotechs today and PRIMEX really screwed me several times. On a couple of occasions, I tried to sell 1000 shares at market but PRIMEX held the orders even though there was ample size on the best bid. After about 5 seconds, it executed, but by then there was less than 1000 shares on the best bid. So, then it stops (after maybe 300 shares went off) for a few more seconds, and then the balance of the shares get executed a successively lower prices. This is just one example, there are many more. PRIMEX reminded me of when I used to trade through ETRADE. You know, the market maker executes a token amount (say 200 shares) and then holds the rest until he can screw you with it. Hate to say it, but IB ain't that far off from ETRADE now.
Hi Def, My fills with Primex have been okay from what I can tell. But....I would like the option to disable Primex from the BEST_EX option and see if there is any difference. Thanks, dude
ronin and others, as mentioned previously please send a specific example - time, market, etc to ibmgt or the help desk. IB maintains detailed audit trails and can probe into an order. IB's track record has shown that adjustments will be made if necessary.
I think IB has the makings of another customer relations disaster on its hands here. Let's see, they make a major routing change, don't mention it to their customers, the change seems to adversely affect executions, the Primex platform is clearly intended to screw ECN's and add opaqueness to the market and it is impossible to disable the Primex routing and still use the default Best execution feature. Why would they do this? Either Primex is cutting them in on some revenue or they are trying to avoid ECN fees. Why should the burden be on customers to prove they suffered inferior executions? IB has the technology to track it itself, plus it is obvious that the black hole nature of Primex will adversely affect individual executions, as detailed by some here, AND adversely affect the market as a whole by subtracting transparent liquidity.