I checked out the website and it says it is SIPC. I think all "retail" accounts are. On first look Lightspeed rates appear to be a little bit higher than IB unbundled rates unless you trade 100 shares per trade and then the IB minimum trade cost will kick in. Other costs appear to be a factor as well like wire fees and the interest rates on overnight cash are a lot lower. (I try to do a lot of EFPs with IB to raise my overall retrun on cash as well) Of course if Lightspeed gives accurate real time PnL which IB does NOT do that may be worth the change over just for the reason......
For my needs Lightspeeds trading platform is the best I've ever used. Leaves Sterling, TWS, Laser far behind.
I am trying to understand why most of the traders on teh site are alwasy sweating ten bucks here and ten bucks there!! LOL.. if you are really making it with trading then the fees you pay for quotes should be the least of your worries.. lol Liek buying a ferrari and worrying that you won't be able to afford the insurance..
Couple of questions. Does the outbound fee come into play a lot? I know it depends on how you trade, but on active stocks it looks like you could get hit with this a lot. A trader I watched on youtube that uses lightspeed platform that does about 100k/day in shares says that he gets a rebate based on share volume of about 2,000 dollars/mo. Is that rebate doable retail, or is that maybe prop using lightspeed platform?
jaytrader, I would say you are right if your volume is on the lower end, but if you are doing high volume you'd be a fool not to take the cost of commissions into account. This is your business, and costs count, and commissions can add up fast. A ferrari is a toy not a business.
Cutting cost where ever possiple is never a bad business practice as long as quality isn't sacrificed. If I had not switched to IB early on, the extra 1000 per cent my trades were costing me would have taking me out of the game long before I had a chance to learn. Guess it doesn't matter if you begin trading 1000 shares or more at a time, though I wasn't so lucky to have a big pile of capital to start with. 10 bucks for 10 200 share plays or 10 bucks per trade for the same (100 smackers). 90 bucks diff in cost would be significant to me even on a 1000 dollar day up or down. As far as quality, I've had my best fills with IB. I started with TD, then Scott, Cybertrader, Tradestation, and finally IB. Almost blew my account trading with cybertrader 4 years back...on commissions. You bet I sweat ten bucks here or there.