I can see they are getting multiple qoutes from several market makers but can't find the term "ECN" from their website. If not, what is the difference btw ECN like currenex or hotspot and IB dealpro?
IBs IDEALPRO is a pure ECN. IB just provide the infrastructure and charges commision for using it. You can easily 'test' it by placing orders inside the spread. You can see your order immidiatly becon best bid or ask. I guess currently connected a 4 or 5 big banks as liquidy provider. Joerg
I believe this is not totally accurate. Orders routed to the liquidity providers on idealpro need not be filled as they are not required to honour their quotes unlike a true ecn
I would really like an IB rep to give an answer to this question _finally_. The issue has been discussed extensively here in the past - but no statement from IB. The outcome was, that IdealPro behaves like a true ECN 98% of the time. However, it appears that liq providers have the "opportunity" to back away sometimes or to add a "confirm before execute" flag to a bid/ask quote. I am not sure about this - just observations. Unfortunately, as we all know, these situations will likely occurr when you need your fill most.
I have the same understaning on this issue as you. The feed back I've read here has been very positive in terms of getting orders through...even during news releases and other times of high volatility. I don't know of any reason to think that problems will likely occur when you need your fill the most.
you'll never have prblem getting fileld on market orders.... the slippage on that during periods of high vol I can't say for sure. I've had limit orders with prices at least 6 pips away from current mkt price not get filled but that happens rarely