Times change very quickly. I can remember prior to Interactive Brokers in 1999, that you could not even get a discount on the e-mini's...brokers were still trying to feed the pits and you were basically stuck paying high teens for the full contract, if you were lucky or connected or did alot volume...I remember LFG quoted me a price of about $25 per contract with all fees...(btw, fees were always being thrown onto the commissions...you had to twist the brokers arms to get these reduced)...Back then you had to always negotiate with a broker, and they had more power to tell you to walk...It was like trying to deal with a car salesman...you would go around and get some offers on different cars, etc, etc... Back in 1998 most everyone I knew was using LFG's "LEO" software that was always slow in reporting fills...You would sit for a few minutes alot of times without even getting a fill report...then you would call the broker, sit on hold for a minute or so and he would tell you that you got filled(at a terrible price as well)... For options, it gets even worse...Back before IB came out with the per contract options commissions, you were stuck with firms like Lafferty, Brown & co, Wall Street Access, Dreyfuss, etc...You always had to pay a ticket charge, no matter if it was a 1 lot or a 10 lot...you couldnt scale in or scale out, take partials, etc, without racking up enormous commissions...You were always going through their slow, cumbersome software, etc... Not to give enormous props to IB, but I will say that prior to IB and prior to the proliferation of daytrading shops in the late 1990's, things were tough all over for the retail joe...And no one forced competition like IB did...Until that day in late 1998 where I found IB, I can't recall any brokers doing e-minis under $10...Options were always a minimum of about $20 whether a 1 lot or 10 lot... I have no idea what the commissions were like say in 1993 or 1983, its before my time...But considering I am talking about a situation only 5 years ago, its amazing how much we take for granted at this stage...You really had to see what a big hit those commissions were just 5 years ago to appreciate how quickly competition has destroyed that obstacle
random walk down memory lane... and now we got newbie guys (now getting close to pro commissions and executions).... on ET finding something else to complain about... like there is no ENTRY price on TWS.... Give me a frickin break! Maybe IB should have TWS wipe their noses for them too... when they sneeze, or cry. (lol)
I'm LOL at your post. So a platform sucks just because you want the price you submitted for an order to display on your screen. I guess it doesn't matter if you can get in and out of a trade faster than most people. Reliability, product depth, etc. don't matter either. After all these years, I've never heard of someone wanting an entry price on their screen. But guess what, a year ago, trailing stops, brackets, conditional and iceberg orders didn't exist on the TWS either. Neither did the ability to trade global stocks and futures from the same screen, account and currency. I guess IB sucked before then and will continue to suck until it becomes all things to all people. Do all other brokerages suck because they don't offer these services? Now back to your initial comment: the average price column was just added a week or two ago. It works for stocks and as it is a work in progress, futures will be added to it shortly.
Def, I'm talking about my execution price...I traded futures and it doesn't show. I thought I was doing something wrong so I called and tech support said nope it doesn't show. I scalp so instead of having to look in another window i want to know now what is my average price. I'm a small trader (only 6 contracts per trade and I've only started trading in 1996 I'm still a newbie) so i like to see my price asap, I look to get out in 2 ticks. I generate enough commissions so I'm sure IB is happy. IB's depth is slow it only refreshes every 5 sec! I talked with tech and he said it should be realtime and agreed there is a problem within your system! I also compared it with FFAST TRADE and WOW theirs is on time! I called a buddy that trades on Trading Technologies (Harris Brumfiels platform, I'm sure you must have heard of him...the biggest trader on EUREX) and my buddies DEPTH quotes also do not have the delay that IB's does. I thought IB was a bargain for $2 per contract....Maybe you all are proving me wrong? Sure others charge for software, but the price on contracts is less and they have realtime futures depths. Reliability....I don't know yet...I've only had 3 bulletins today about price/quote problems. As for nobody wanting the entry price on the screen, your killing me, what trader is not interested in their entry price? Especially in a fast market and scalping? That is why I prefer it .
I'm not interested in IB slow API depth quotes, but 2 other advertisers on this site have them beat for commissions (futures and stocks).
How many brokers provide market depth via their API? (I don't know of many retail data providers that allow you to get market depth quotes in their API) According to you: commissions/data are better elsewhere and the TWS sucks - perhaps you should go elsewhere good luck.
What are you doing looking at market depth for futures? Anything not on the bid/ask line is total BS and even then bid/ask sizes get fooled with alot.
What is the problem with having the Execution window open to show you your fills? I have it sitting right under my TWS trading page, it doesn't even look like a separate window. Also, in my experience the depth of market on emini's updates in a fraction of a second.