Hi Champions, I am new to this forum. Not sure if this is answered before. Basically I used Alpaca and its order execution take much time even the order is between bid and ask. Also, hardly better price than limit order price. On the other hand, for IB, I found faster execution with better than limit price but fees is burning profit into loss. These are for algo trading with volatile stocks. Is there a broker who is faster enough (with limit order between bid and ask) with no fee? Your input will help. Thanks in advance.
What are you talking of? Stocks, options, futures, or some other exotic stuff? Nowadays stock trades are $0 with most of the brokerage firms. If it takes longer to get filled, then the most probable reason could be that your offer is not a multiple of the tick size, as these are not forwarded to the exchanges, but just sit at your brokerage firm... Complicating the matter is that the tick size varies with the price... And finding the correct tick size can be complicated...
Thanks for your quick reply and important inputs which I was missing particularly tick size. This is for volatile stocks with good pre-market volume with price range below $1 upto $20. Could you please share broker you have good experience with in terms of filling order around trade price(Time of sale price / between Bid and ASK)?
Sorry I can't give an objective answer b/c I don't have experience with more than 1 or 2 US brokers, and I haven't specifically measured it, and also not much trading before or after market. I'm currently with TD and I think they are "very normal" regarding such fills. The other US broker I have past experience is IB. I think both are the biggest US brokers for retail traders. Maybe someone else can give you some better answers. Regarding tick size: here's some more info: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tick-size.asp
What I tell my API clients is the faster you want to go, the more costly its going to be. Commission free trading is even more tricky as orders could be routed to market makers for execution, so you generally lose lost of control of where your order ends up. If you would like to discuss this more, I am happy to help.
If you want good fills, it is best to use brokers that have commissions. Best for scalping since fills are important. For free trades, they have to make their money somewhere, so they front run or sell your orders to bigger firms. If you are swing trading and fill aren't that important, than this might be better since the cost of slippage+comissions will be lower