I've traded with almost all of the brokers you hear about on the site and MB has been and continues to be the best by far.
MBT's combination of lightening fast executions, superior customer service and low commissions create a top notch trading environment unsurpassed within the industry. However, don't take my word for it. View the results of the Barron's survey. Congrats to MBTrading for ranking at the top of Barron's List. - Spydertrader <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1004997>
I used them for ETF trading and they were good. At the time their hours were much more limited than they are now.
i see mb went to .004 no ecn's but they say for retail traders and they can cut you off that rate. are they saying if you trade too much they'll kick you out?
Apparently MB Trading's new per-share (no rebate) rate plan-C is $0.004/share for the first 4000 shares and then $0.01/share afterwards. The old per share plan-A rate i.e., $0.01/share for the first 500 shares and then $0.005/share afterwards is also there. If you take out liquidity more often than you add, the new rate plan seems better than IB's at least for the first 300000 shares per month.
Per MB Trading, the 0.004/share uses the following order routing: "1. MBTR is a new order route which offers the same award-winning functionality as MBTX. MBTR utilizes specific liquidity pools without the traditional costs of ECN pricing models to seek "best execution." This new route offers the flexibility and functionality that has made MB Trading a leader in trading technology." I wonder if there is a tradeoff of better commissions on orders of less than 4000 shares at the expense of poorer order fills from a more limited liquidity pool? Also, from a MBT footnote, the SEC and specialist fees add to all commissions plans.
According to MB Trading, if you use their auto-router to place an order, it will automatically cancel and re-place an order after a certain period of time to avoid the specialist fees. Otherwise, you have to do that yourself if you want to avoid that fee. SEC fee is for the sell order only and it is $31 per million dollar sell transaction which is often many times smaller than the average round-trip base commissions.
so with the .004 mb will try to avoid ecn's as that .003 take charge would kill them so i'd assume the fills worse and if you do limits the unbundled fee's at ib much better getting the rebate