Why people pump IB so much , no question it's a great Brokerage but , other brokerages are good as well , I know people who pay very high commissions for trades , but they still make money. I trade with JUST2TRADE , and trust me I get everything I need , 2.50 trades and 3 1/2% margin , I'm opening IB account also. And folks , more you trade less you make...so))
I used their platform for a while and at the open, the first trade is iffy a lot. After that it works ok. I'ed like to open an account with them but with all the financial problems whose to say they and other small brokers won't go under and sipc bales. Can't shake it. That's just how I feel. Lightspeed is not a public company, so whose to say how they are doing.
If you are doing a lot of scalping then I would go with Lightspeed. Lightspeed is a better OMS (order management system) for daytrading. Again make sure you are aware of all the fees. With IB you can have all in at .005/share, which is good if you are taking liquidity. If you are buying on bid and selling at offer (adding liquidity) then Lightspeed would be cheaper. A negative with Lightspeed is that your orders are canceled if you are logged off or lose connection. That does not make a lot of sense to me.
It makes a lot of sense to me -- I've experienced the alternative, namely being disconnected and having orders till live -- let's just say the results weren't always what I wanted
This is a good point. Lightspeed is essentially a Schonfeld entity as well, so there is also potential conflict of intrest with Schonfeld's own trading groups/high frequency hedge funds, which I understand use the same physical trading facility in Long Island. But as I say, that is only POTENTIAL; they seem to be a very good firm from all external appearances. There's an interview with the CEO on Youtube; check it out for yourself -- I was positively impressed. Note that the prop trading/BD client potential conflict of interest ALSO exists for IB, which actually makes most of its money from its own proprietary trading ("Timber Hill"). In fact, my impression is that with them, it's a little more than potential -- check out their cancel fees, which provide a nice DISincentive from your trying to compete with Timber Hill's market making operations But as you say, as a public company, it seems a little safer from the "full disclosure" point of view. Also, I do have a fair amount of trust in founder Peterffy, as he and his firm seem to have done quite a bit to "move the industry forward", so to speak. But the bottom line is there's no totally safe B/D (or bank or etc.), and never has been. I think some of the "pure agency" firms are great in that they don't trade for themselves, but there aren't many (Genesis and Assent being two, I think). Genesis again isn't public, but their customers seem very happy (as do Lightspeed's, for that matter). Assent is a Sungard property, and Sungard is of course public, but I think it's a little indirect in that it's an LLC (??). Assent also seems to have dealt with some rather smarmy trading group(s) in the past, although since Sungard's acquisition it seems to have been progressively cleaning up its act in this regard (??). There are other "pure agency" places out there, but most of them won't take retail clients, or only if you ask really nicely and have quite high volume and AUM. I won't mention them here because, if you're such a trader, you probably know who they are already; if not, just ask or search the forums.
Thanks for the advice but that won't work for me. I don't want to trade more than one stock at a time, let alone split my attention between two brokers. Not to mention I would need 50 grand instead of 25 to be able to daytrade with both.
Yeah it makes sense to cancel orders for new open orders to open new positions, but not for open orders (stop orders) to close positions.
Thanks to all the posters and Euler in particular. I'm going to go with Lightspeed (there is another thing tax-wise they can do for me that IB has refused to). After I get more experience (and hopefully more money) I will check out Genesis and Assent as well.