I think you meant 100 instead of 10. Anyway, smaller accounts not only don't trade as frequently, but also blow out sooner. So they don't have as much economic value regardless of the percentage made by IB. And trading 5 shares @ $1 commish makes less economic sense because of the percentage that the commission represents relative to the amount at risk. Just to break even on any stock means the stock has to move significantly more than it would if you had done a standard round lot of 100. Even their commission structure is geared away from picker trading in stocks.
I meant 10. IB's commission is $1 minimum so any shares less than 100 is still $1. I would argue that trading high priced stocks such as GOOG forces one to use odd lots for risk control. "picker trading"?
Even big traders have an important use for odd lot orders, i.e. for trigger orders; we often have dozens of big orders in at a time using triggers.
In low liquidity stocks perhaps. But then again, most large traders don't deal in low liquidity stocks on account of the inherrent risk in doing so.
I'm actually talking triggering option orders or cancellations based on if your odd lot of stocks goes thru or not.
Well, they did go from 2k to 5k. I think they should go from 5k to 50k to keep out the pikers. You know. The ones who keep calling up and pissing off the customer support when they get a bad fill on 20 shares...
LOL, then they come post on ET and complain about bad customer service. Tie up the phone line for the people who have a real issue once a year.