NYOB, I would agree with you on many points. There are times when you can clearly see that the ISE gets lifted last in line. In some cases (not the majority) its not the case and can even get lifted first from my experience. I would also agree that in the 3M shares per day range for last week it was hard to continue with ISE and in fact I started going back to ARCA. Especially with the stocks that I was scalping for 10-12 cents per trade. With IB I have also routed NAZ stocks to ISE again for the higher rate than Island with faily good results. Jury is still out with me on that one but it appears to be better than NYSE. Bottom Line: Unless the volume is huge and volatility is just as huge your probably better off using ARCA for NYSE at this point
I have to use ARCA on reserve/show qty orders; cancel/change the whole day long - etrade doesn't charge anything.
I'm using TradeStation currently for stock scalping. I also have a Reg T account at IB and I'm thinking of doing some trading there because their commissions are cheaper but with the same min. ticket charge. I'm wondering about using TWS with rebates or are there other brokers available for better commission rates. I'm doing 15 to 25 trades per day.