Didn't TDAmeritrade acquire TradeCast in 2001 to offer direct access services? Source: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ameri...cess+With+Acquisition+of+Tradecast-a070459290
IB cost per share is a lot more if you trade mor than 5000 shares in penny stocks compared to charge flat fee of $5/trade for unlimited shares and IB charges level 2 most of IB clients daytrade futures and don't daytrade penny stocks are over 1000 share stocks.
The question you should ask why doesn't TD have futures and forex AND STOCKS IN ONE ACCOUNT like IB If they did many would move to TD instead.
forex, options and futures trading is more profitable for the market makers. IB is a major options and futures broker/market maker. as for stocks they don't have enough volume or make enough money on stocks or don't want traders trading stocks so commissions are higher for stocks versus other brokers who trade stocks.
Where do you come up with such nonsense? First, I didn't realize TD was charging .005 per share? Second, read TD's order flow statement. IB is committed to price improvement and our stats and external audits prove this. Third, read the fine print for many brokers. They charge additional fees for shares over 5K. Finally, you obviously have no clue on how many shares are traded via IB each day. Try posting some facts next time.
def IB is great in many many aspects. I wish they charge reasonable margins in option trades. I have a small a/c and these days I can just do 2 trades and I am down in available funds which is not acceptable for risk management. I hope you will consider this. Probably commission income is not at all important to IB
if you need low margin interest rates, IB totally RULES for large balances this is the biggest expense of all...
No , I am not concerned about the interest rates. It is the actual margin requirements -initial plus maintenance - that IB sets aside from total fund thereby reducing available funds for further trades. This creates a big constraint.
Just an FYI . . . TD Ameritrade has very recently ( during the month of December ) upgraded all of the micro-processors on their servers that support their data-feeds. They have also re-written code, and made numerous other improvements to their data-feed. I have been using Quotetracker for charting and trade execution via an Ameritrade account, and have had to use DTN's "IQ-Feed" in order to upgrade the Level-One quotes and have a much better idea of where the market is when volume and volatility come into play . . . The Level-II quotes that the Ameritrade feed was providing just weren't up to the task in my opinion, especially in "fast" markets. After monitoring things for the last couple of days using the DTN feed as my "reference", I can quite honestly say that there no longer is a "lag" with the Ameritrade data-feed. The big "test" of course will be in January when the volume comes back. In any event, I was actually quite blown away that the new Ameritrade Level-II feed was keeping up with the DTN "time and sales" Level-One feed on the SPY's. They were moving in "lock step" all the way into the close of trading.
http://www.tdameritrade.com/ratesfees.html i don't know, what apex is, but for regular average joe with regular TD account L2 is $10