Hi, Last year I made trades for over 24 million of shares or I made over 3500 trades(stocks only), I used a zero commissions broker, but I am concerned about the speed and reliability of the broker, but at the same time with that volume I do not want to pay too much, as a European Union resident I do not have access to many options(I can't use TD or Etrade), at the moment I am considering IB and Lightspeed. Any recommendation?
Feel free to reach out to me to try Lightspeed. I will assist with your paperwork if you email me directly and you can use this promotion. 10K2021 (There will be a 10K2022 version soon) https://www.lightspeed.com/10k-2021/. I expect you will be happy with our offering.
If you do fast trades/scalps esp lowfloat smallcaps then yes, you should probably look into a commission based broker with superior execution. I wouldn't go with IB unless you supplement it with DAS trader.
24M shares in only 3500 trades is a HUGE number of shares per trade. Do you consider one "trade" to be one order or do you scale in and out with many orders? If you're really doing 3000+ shares per order then Lightspeed's per-trade commission scheme might actually be good for you. I would be curious how you avoid moving the market with such big orders though. I mean, obviously you aren't trading MOCs or you wouldn't be concerned about execution speed.. I'm also curious, which broker did you use that offers zero commission to EU residents? Everything I've seen with zero commissions always says "US citizens only".
If your average order size is about 6800 shares, the per trade rate would save you money. In fact if you add liquidity, you would be trading for credits on ARCA or NSDQ. Our base rate before volume discounts is $4.50/Trade. If you add on ARCA/NSDQ, that is a credit of $13.60 (6800*.002) for a net credit of $9.10 before volume discounts and reg fees.
Yes, sometimes the orders are too large and it is more efficient to scale them, but my broker does not offer hotkeys or one-click order entry, so for now I prefer to trade high volume stocks. I develop this system to take advantage of the zero commission broker, but now with a larger bankroll it is interesting to consider paying some commissions and get a better platform. I use one small US broker but I prefer not to mention it, the other option is Charles Shwab but it does not offer a margin account for EU residents and that is a serious problem for a daytrader.
We offer Margin, hot keys, hot buttons and configurable order ticket's. https://www.lightspeed.com/education/product-tutorials/
Thanks for the info, I am working now backtesting lightspeed commissions. What is the max share size with per trade commission?
While some above say don't check out IB, I'd argue that you should, not only would you be dealing with an extremely well capitalized firm, you'd be dealing with a firm that has substantial market share on the US exchanges that doesn't sell your flow. Given the sizes you are trading, I suspect you'll see substantial price improvement routing via IBKR. You also could take advantage of our ATS which could keep your orders hidden https://www.interactivebrokers.com.hk/en/index.php?f=4485 On top of that, we have the accumulate/distribute algo which works quite well with large orders. With that above, of course if you are using margin, that would be a huge factor in cost and if not and you're holding onto positions, you could perhaps lend your shares out and receive income from our SYEP program.