Don't worry Trader5287, IB is fast moving and sometimes creates road kill, etc. but they will straighten it out. If you don't trade the S&P100 it won't affect you for awhile anyway.
I forwarded your concerns and this is the response I rec'd from the top: "Could you please tell them that we show our marketable orders to Primex first in the hopes of getting one or two cents price improvement. If their experience continues we will change this routing." Your comments show that this is not the case and thus I will foward your latest comments along.
I think a lot of you guys here should take the time to actually study the PRIMEX documentation before starting to make up conspiracy theories about evil MMs inventing PRIMEX in order to steal your money. It's all very well explained including detailed trade examples. There's no such thing as "PRIMEX backing away" since "0 seconds exposure" orders which IB submits will only execute against pre-registered indications. And while there is a delay issue due to rerouting when there's no liquidity on PRIMEX there's noone there intentionally trying to pick you off. What I wonder is where all of you were last spring when IB instuted changes to their order routing that really were detrimental to their customers' trading. At that time IB decided to cripple ARCA and REDI by disabling all active routing functionality in order to force their customers to use their BEST routing. While the subsequent introduction of SuperSOES took care of most of the earlier deficiencies of IB's BEST routing, this has removed all redundancy in terms of routing paths from the trading platform. In addition, after hours and pre-market it is no longer possible to trade with MMs or access liquidity on the MKXT, GNET, NTRD, and ATTN ECNs (which used to be possible via REDI and ARCA). For NYSE and AMEX stocks the crippling of ARCA has removed the option of trading with all the regional exchanges as well as Nasdaq Intermarket dealers. Back then I spent many hours with David Friedland (def) and Steve Sanders trying to convince IB management to repeal those changes but to no avail. Probably because I was the only one to complain. As for my experience with PRIMEX so far: While I haven't seen much in terms of price improvement on the NBBO I have greatly benefited from the new routing over the last few days due to the increased liquidity it provides at the inside market. I've received lots of instantaneous complete fills on orders where the size displayed at the NBBO would have been insufficient. There is however a problem with routing delays in situations where orders are sent to PRIMEX when no PRIs are present. Unfortunately the "0 seconds exposure" and subsequent rerouting tends to take quite a few more seconds (4 to 5) in those cases which can result in missed executions due to other displayed liquidity within one's limit price trading ahead. My experience with PRIMEX executions so far has been limited to NDX stocks since I almost always use NYSE or AMEX routing for listed stocks. However, I believe that the issue raised by some other poster with receiving inferior price improvement compared to what would have been available from the specialist in situations where the specialist opens up the spread is an important one and needs to ba addressed. If the above mentioned (rerouting) delay problems cannot be resolved, I think it would be a good idea to have a separate BEST route that specifically excludes PRIMEX. But I don't want to see PRIMEX removed from the regular BEST routing. Dave
So at this point IB completely removes the Active functions of ARCA and REDI? If that is the case, I guess I have no reason to use IB( I was about to wire funds). cas
There is no assumption made that they are trying to steal money, but that they are trying to move liquidity from the current free market type network, to their own domain where they make the rules. All this with the smokescreen that price improvement similar to the NYSE auction style can be had. Are you telling me that if the whole universe of traders were represented by Traders A, B and C, and these traders moved all of their orders from the current system to the Primex auction, that they'd receive better prices on their transactions? If A receives a better price on his trade, then B or C has to take the losing side of that trade correct? So are we to assume it's the MM's that are going to offer improvement and be eating the difference in the real world? I doubt it. The volume will move to Primex, the spreads will widen like the old days and the MM's (PAMM'S) will generously give you price improvement once in awhile. Dave
"dlincke", that was a great post! I think most of us were with IB when those changes were made with respect to ARCA and REDI but we did not have "Elite Trader" to air it all out. Elite Trader is a real asset for IB users. IB may have very good reasons for the crippling changes they made to our use of ARCA and REDI. I would like to hear all of their reasons again. Catoosa
some of the reasons were loss of control of an order, the arrival of SuperSoes and I think additional pass on fees from the different ECN's.
cas: IB doesn't allow active orders to be routed to ARCA or REDI, you only can route passive orders there Dave: You were not the only one who tried to convince IB management not to disable active routing to ARCA and REDI, I wrote them many e-mails, too Also, what was worst, they didn't tell anyone about the changes (at least I was not told) and I remember, I spent like 2 weeks trying to find out what was wrong with my orders, I spent hours on the phone, e-mailing customer service, nobody could tell me why my orders to ARCA and REDI were beeing cancelled (they made me re-install the TWS, the Java plug-in, they made me monitor all my trades, etc. and send them the results...) (fyi I usually use market orders, so all of my orders were beeing rejected) After 2 weeks, I was told IB disabled the active order routing and hence my market orders were beeing cancelled; the reason I was told, was that IB customer's orders were crossing/locking the market; As for Primex, I also don't like the delay caused by the order going first to Primex, since 99% of my orders don't get filled there anyway. (trade Nasdaq stocks only)
enough with this primex shit. what should've been a scratch just turned into a 1/4 point loss because my MKT sell order just got hung.