As the original poster of this thread, i really appreciate all the feedback. The problem I have found is that on NYSE stocks, if the specailist spreads the quote wide with the intention of crossing the orders in between the spread, Primex will fill maybe one cent better then the posted quote where on the NYSE you may get .10 or .20 or more price improvement. Primex as it is currently implamented offers a liability to IB traders on NYSE stocks IMHO
hpex1, You are 100% correct. I've noticed this a half dozen times. Be careful using best market for NYSE stocks!!! You should send it directly to the NYSE.
Catoosa, I use limit orders too. The problem is, if you put in a bid to take out an offer (or the other way around) TWS seems to route to Primex quite often. If the market is moving in your favor, the order will be filled. If the market is moving against you the order is usually NOT filled and BEST must reroute it. Sometimes this is very quick, but sometimes it takes a few seconds. Consequently, it is very likely you will miss a fill if the market is going against you. As far as price improvement, I have yet to see any. I trade large cap Nasdaq stocks and QQQ. I have nothing good to say about Primex. It either harms me or does me no good. I would like to document examples, but when I have one order to execute, I usually have several, and I just haven't been able to take time to document what happens. But, I SEE it. I think that if you watch closely you will see that PRIMEX does not work in your favor - it may not harm you every time, but it doesn't help you.
I can see that there might be some theoretical advantage to Primex, if one supposes that there are large orders lurking sight unseen waiting to cross market orders. The problem I have with it, even if there is some advantage, is that it detracts from the transparency of the Lev II book. Yes, a MM can show 100 shares or whatever on LevII now, but at least they have to be there. With Primex, you can't tell who is on the bid/offer. It is clearly a massive step backwards for individual traders and seems to me to threaten the viability of direct access/ecn trading. Unless I see some other believeable explanation, I have to assume the intent of Primex is to destroy the ECN's and put us back to the days when the MM's controlled the bid/offer's and ignored our bids and offers. It seems to me imperative that we all stop using Primex immediately. Why aid those who long to go back to the days when they could conspire and screw us and there was nothing we could do about it? You can still get smart routing by selecting ARCA. I'm not sure how it differs from Best but in my experience ARCA is fast and reliable. I don't want to criticize IB too severely on this, as they have been one of the best friends traders could have, in stocks, options and futures. I do think they need to make it a priority to inform us of material changes like this ahead of time, so it doesn't look like they are trying to sneak something in on us.
I believe that the features of individual ECNs are disabled by IB, because the BEST ex is sup'd to do it in lieu of these features. As far as Primex goes, I received no fills via Primex today on naz - did IB disable them or is it just a coincidence??? Did anyone get fills via Primex today on naz?
Out of 20 or so trades today using Best, I haven't had a single one route to Primex? They must have disconnected it temporarily?
I had a PRIMEX fill at 9:37 and 9:46. I had several other orders routed there, but Primex backed away. The fills aren't the problem (although one of them was very slow), it's the orders that aren't filled and have to be re-routed that create the problem.
I guess they didn't disable it yet then. This is really unbelieveable - reading thru the Primex FAQ PDF, items 10-13, in order to use it they want firms to send at least 80% of their customer orders to Primex (regardless of whether they get filled there), the fee for taking away liquidity is 0.01/share ($5 max), and regulation is left up to the individual MM's. Unfuckingbelievable....who the fuck wants their order routing to take an extra step before it gets filled? Who wants to pay an extra penny a share? Who wants the market to be less transparent??? This is the next step beyond the PDT rule.
MM's want to return to their glory days. There is nothing positive about what they're doing but trying to create a Monopoly and get their power back. Even if they give better fills I think the individual trader should avoid them in lieu of the long-term damage that will be done by this organization.