An update on my earlier observations: When Smart is used as the routing choice: The adding and minusing of a penny on my orders meant to lift the bid and/or offer and instead posting my order as the inside bid or offer after adding or removing a penny is no longer taking place. However it has been replaced with the following: When I place as order to lift the inside bid or offer, it is now being filled by Ideal (Timber Hill) in almost all instances. In essence TH is taking the opposite side of my trades in these situations. What consequences does it have on my trading? If I enter a position then the results are not good for obvious reasons. If I exit a position then I don't care as long as I don't get back later in the same security. If I do re-enter the same security the result is a loss again for obvious reasons. I'll reiterate that Ideal only takes the opposite side of my trades when I attempt to lift the inside bid or offer. If I add to liquidity by posting as the inside bid or offer then on my order gets posted on Inet for Nasdaq and Nyse for Nyse stocks. The above can be verified by anybody who is an IB client and trades stocks. If your results are different then please let me know since this would segue into a different ball game. The alternative is to choose your own routing. It is doable but not very practical under IB's current setup. First you have to choose stocks as the instrument, then opt for "Directed" as the routing option and finally decide on the ultimate destination - Inet, Arca etc. Needless to mention that all these steps entail loss of precious time when you are actively scalping .
ak15 An update on my earlier observations: ********************************* Exist motive -as IBKR is not pure agent of principal (Romian law) AMTD(after selling interess in NITE ),OXPS,SWIM (thinkorswim -public noted after merger) are pure agent*s Divide your capital in three parts and work only with pure agent of principal ,which have not proprietary accounts .
Is there something an IB client must do to qualify for price improvement for stock trading? I don't seem to be getting this with IB.
Def Wrote "We actually have had best execution audits " You misunderstand me. What I'm asking is who audits your software or audits your interaction with TH to ensure that the so called Chinese Wall is actually there? Remember the Brokerage Industry used to always say that their research/analyst department and trading desk had this "Chinese Wall" as well. So your answer has historical precedent. You're a private company and you have proprietary software that no one else can look at, so you can say anything you want without any independent verification. So is there any independent verification source that verifies TH and IB do not share any customer data or trading data (i.e. not a self referential IB statement or the IB Chairman's statement)??