No i'm not changing my tune and the orders are not internalized as you state. The quality of the executions speak for themselves and as stated many times before, the independent audits on execution quality back this up. TH's pricing is independent of anything on the IB side and If you don't want to believe that, it's not worth arguing with you any further.
Actually, it is you who are the FOOL thinking that anyone here actually believes a single word that you have written.
Here's something I believe: That's internalization in what is perhaps its purest possible form -- even more so than payment-for-order-flow. And without any guarantee of "price improvement". Such internalization does worsen prices across the market, as argued not only by the academic literature but also your own firm in its pre-"price improvement" days. "Independent audits" are based around some reference price; if you worsen the reference point (which internalization clearly DOES, as argued by the academic literature, as well as the aforementioned IB documents), there's no truly valid reference point from which to audit.
may [mey] âauxiliary verb, present singular 1st person may, 2nd may or ( Archaic ) may·est or mayst, 3rd may; present plural may; past might. 1.(used to express possibility): It may rain.
I am not an IB shill, but wtf cares whether Timber trades against me? If I post a limit I should be happy with the resulting fill, whether it's Timber who lifts my offer or someone else. I trade options there for this very possibility.
Because it's a conflict of interest. It's like saying wtf cares whether your real estate agent trades against you. You have a house for sale. Your agent attempts to convince you to sell it for less so she can buy it lower for her account and sell it to someone else for more.
Wrong again. The TH bid/ask for shares could be considered a dark pool for stocks which becomes part of the internal NBBO. The smart router will send the order to the venue where it believes it can contain the best execution. TH does see client flow, if anything it is the other way around as it just provides an additional source of liquidity. In addition, clients would know that trades where TH is on the other side are noted in the execution reports and the percentage of them is quite low. As for my real estate agent, I'd welcome the additional liquidity. I could care less if she trades against me as long as I know that her offer is at the best available price that I could obtain in the market.