If IEX cared about retail, as they claim, why are THEY skimming ALL orders? They charge for EVERY share in every order they take in. They take their skim even if they don't have an order in their dark pool to match yours. They take their skim even if you are adding liquidity. They are the only venue with a guaranteed skim. THEY are doing the rigging.
Post a detailed example with numbers where you compare the direct costs of execution with other exchange venues or darkpools/ecns. That makes more sense than just throwing accusations into the air. By the way you should only be qualified to speak if you have actually traded through IEX, you know what the exact transaction costs are and your arrival price profile. Else, you have nothing to measure.
YOU can spend YOUR day coming up with YOUR detailed example. Have YOU seen the price sheet for IEX? Those who have, see no "throwing accusations" in my post, just statements of fact.
You are paying for the better fill, and the ability to avoid hft. This is worth more than the "skim". They aren't a non-profit after all. PDQ is their closest competitor and they have a similar fee structure, it's nothing new.
Actually, it is only avoiding the type of parasitic HFT that is derived from the poor implementation of Reg NMS allowing timing differences on the sub second level between exchanges, which will probably be (and should be) fixed very soon. HFT that trades instantly on govt number releases for example will still outstrip any discretionary trader on IEX. So, saying it avoids HFT is not accurate. Plus, orders sent to IEX is equivalent to a fancy internalizer that slows you down as your order is attempted to be matched inside their book before it is sent out to exchanges. All for a fee. They still charge you even if they cant fill you internally while slowing your order down getting its execution from the exchanges. And, the additional time it takes to go thru their system & send your order out to an exchange doesnt get you a better fill if it slows your execution time down.
I completely agree with you, those moaning have most likely not traded on IEX, the fills are way better and my costs of execution have so far looked better for mid and large caps in comparison to routing to other exchanges.
I again can only ask you to speak about things you actually experienced firsthand, everything else will not lend credibility to your statements. I can state from own experience that the fills you get from execution on IEX's order book are superior to most other exchanges. I speak as someone who generally takes, not provides liquidity.
For guys buying at most 100 to 200 shares of PCLN, NFLX, or AAPL, or GOOG at a time. Does it really matter whether you are getting scalped by HFT outside of the IEX? I think not. I don't think you will even get scalped. You will just get filled at the price for those 200 shares and the price won't even move.
How about you put in an order for 5-10 shares in relatively illiquid stock. Does not have to be even small cap. Even if >100 shares are offered put in a buy limit for 5-10 shares and see what happens at Bats & Co. You may change your statement later.