I'll have to disagree on that one. I believe low commissions are the single most important factor in making money at this game. It is quite possible for a guy to churn his account or make a little bit of money at $.01 , but if commissions are lowered to $.0075, this could mean an extra $100-200K in the trader's pocket. For that kind of money, I'll pay for my own computer, flat panel screens, and T1 line.
OK, HOLD IT!....We DO have a direct link to Island (and all the rest), and we DO NOT charge for this direct link, or any other link to ECN's. We don't have the need to charge additional fees. We simply absorb the costs, and keep the bookkeeping simple.
And of course when IB goes down / or your internet connection goes down while you have 5000 shares on .... it doesn't matter that you can't reach customer service in 2 seconds to get out? I put the ability to get out of my positions in an a hurry no matter what very high. Which is where IB lacks. (hey just read the brokers comments) meanwhile all of the pro firms will get you out in a hurry Robert Tharp
I agree that complete incompentence from the hardware aspect (system freezing, etc.) could obviously be costly to a trader. But in my previous post I was refering to professional firms, not a retail outfit like IB.
Robert, I can't agree with you more. I remember one day where all at once 3 things happened: 1. Greenspan spoke, 2. My electricity burped, 3. My UPS did also (now at the bottom of a landfill). In 5 seconds, I had Bob on the line and said "Market me out of all my positions NOW." A few seconds later, he said "Done". The market acted like it always used to when Greenspan spoke and if I had been 30 seconds later, I would have been out 5 figures!
Don, when you say you have a direct link to ISLD, do you mean that your traders can actually post a bid or offer to the ISLD book and show up on Level 2 under ISLD or does it mean that they can just trade with ISLD, as well as all the other ECN's,by taking their offers and hitting their bids via the REDI Ecn?
RTharp, i see that Echo charges a max of $25 per NYSE/AMEX trade. My question is: what if your order for 10,000 shares gets filled 4 separate times of 2500 shares each. Do you pay $25 total or would you pay a total of $100 if you are paying .01 a share?
Robert and cashonly, I also agree with you completely, having good customer service is so essential. I'm sure all the Echo traders are familiar with the "*" key when you call, the Echo trade desk answers within two rings. I have only had to call it for questions on how to set up computers and such, but a couple of times that I called them I barely heard it ring and I had someone on the phone helping me. Trading from my home would be impossible if it wasn't for the countless hours Rob from Echo spent with me on the phone configuring my DSL line to handle 3 computers. He actually took control of my computer and did all the software configuration for me, I have not found another firm that goes out of their way this much to help traders before. I agree with Gene that I would be willing to pay more for the service, it is not all about rates, luckily I could not find a better rate structure than Echo for my trading. Trade well, C PS - cashonly, are you the same Cash that is the remote trading manager for Bright? ie: You get paid based on how many people you convince to join Bright and trade remote?
I am the same. I am the Remote Trading Manager for Bright. If you look at my profile you'll see that's what it says. I just don't use it as a tag line here because of all the ire it incites. :eek:
If I click on Isld on my montage, and place a bid it shows up on Island. If I choose Redi vs. Island then it shows up as Redi (in the RediBook). I just tested it to be sure, with MSFT (I know you guys are experts on this stuff, and I wanted to be completely sure).....