What is the reason why you focus so much on filling orders in dark pools? I use Crossfinder+ and Dark Attack mostly for their execution prices, but I don't like how they limit themselves in dark pools. If there were regular pools/algos that can execute at mid I would choose those instead of the dark algos. For a retail investors, what's the reason to hide the orders? Could you tell me some of your main reasons? Thanks.
I agree, there is no point using dark pools if you are buying AAPL but I trade illiquid names and if I show my hands to MMs and other traders, they will rape me. I sometimes keep buying a stock for days if not weeks and can go up to 40% of ADV. I can't possibly do that on exchanges, MMs will pull their offers/bids. Even with dark pools they sometimes do that if they realize someone is buying a big chunk, but to the lesser extend. The main reason do use dark pools is privacy for larger orders, that's it really. Price improvement comes second for me.
Even if you are trading liquid names, you might want to liquidate a relatively large position at a time when there's little liquidity and in a particular timeframe. This will definitely affect your fills.
Exact opposite of what I described above happened to me today. My crossfinder + order was sitting on the offer for half an hour with no luck. Routed to Dark Attack and the entire order was instantly filled. More proof that these algos can not capture the entire dark pool liquidity.
Do you know if the Fox River algos are supported by IB's API? I can't find them in the GitHub docs. Thanks.