Level 2 on different brokers

Discussion in 'Order Execution' started by Karuken, Dec 23, 2020.

  1. Karuken

    Karuken

    Hi Folks
    Bit of a lurker, first post, had a think about it, hope this is the right place.

    I have nothing bad to say about any of these brokers, just an honest comparative question for anyone who might have some understanding.

    I use TradeZero International as a bit of a hobby for Day Trading. I've had some moderate success & am toying with the idea of taking things a bit more seriously in the new year. I recently tried the WeBull lvl2 with Nasdaq totalview as well.
    I also gave the web-browser Nasdaq totalview thing a try. Honestly, only this one was a pain to use, being developed about a decade ago or something.

    Anyway, I've noticed the live level2 values for individual stocks on all three of these are quite different (WeBull lvl2 is supposed to be from the same source as Nasdaq Totalview, I think?)
    Especially between TradeZero & WeBull level 2. Sometimes, there's thousands of shares of difference for a specific bid / ask.

    Any thoughts as to why?

    Thanks
    K.
     
  2. terr

    terr

    There are different feeds that get called "Level II".

    There is BBO - that is, best bid/offer from several exchanges/market makers. That will give you only the top of the "book" at every exchange. Again, depending on the source of the feed, more or fewer exchanges are included.

    There is Market Depth/Total View/Full book - that would show you all or at least more than just one level at the top from the books of every exchange/market maker.

    Your source may have only BBO from some exchanges and market depths from others, and it gets combined and sent to you.

    So what you see depends on what kind of feed your source has and to which exchanges/market makers the source subscribes. Needless to say, that varies greatly from source to source.
     
    Karuken likes this.