Well, is this really just a problem with smart routing for options? Is my observation correct that when smart routing stock orders, they are being routed often to the NYSE who don't seem to let your orders to go through when you're calling the right market direction? While if you choose the exchange you don't have this problem?
<b>The price does not conform to the minimum price variation for this contract.</b> Why do I get this message when I try to put in an option bid ending in a nickel? E.g 3.15 instead of 3.2, 4.65 instead of 4.7. Are you limited to multiples of .10? It seems this way to me, which is bad.
IB solved this particular problem by giving us the option to exclude NYSE from SMART, and it works very well for a lot of people. I think an even better step forward would be to give an option that lets SMART route to NYSE, but ONLY when immediate automatic execution is guaranteed through the NYSE DIRECT+ facility. IB theoretically has this option, but it never actually worked, because of bugs in the logic. They plan to fix it someday, but they are treating it as a low priority item because few seem to care about it.
when ib first started using box got price improvlemt i bet 50% of the time now from what i've seen it's very rare and i do alot of options
I think the option to route the order to electronically available quotes works correctly. (We did some fixes, but that was a long time ago).
No, your order SMART-routes to NYSE because NYSE is DISPLAYING a better price, not because NYSE will EXECUTE at a better price. NYSE often displays the best price, but then executes your order at a worse price than you would have received if you had routed it elsewhere. This is one reason why people like to be able to exclude NYSE from SMART. You need to have special skills, compatible with your particular trading strategy, in order to get good NYSE execution prices.
IMO, if you wanna know which way the stock is going, just see whether NYSE fills your orders or not. It's a pity for the smart route to route to NYSE.
The last time I heard this, I tested the feature, and I immediately discovered that it still did not work, because of multiple bugs, and I submitted one or more trouble tickets or emails, which are no longer available in the system, and if I remember correctly, I was told that the info had been passed on to the developers, and that no info was available as to when the bugs would be fixed. This was a long time ago. Is it possible that the bugs were fixed without any announcement in the release notes? If I recall, one of the bugs I found, with this feature, was that orders were SMART-routed to NYSE even though auto-ex was barred by the five-cent-rule. I had previously reported this bug, I was told it was fixed, but when I tested it, the same bug happened. I believe the other bug I found was that orders would route to NYSE even though auto-ex was barred by another rule which blocks auto-ex whenever a better price is available on a competing market center, even if that better price is only for 100 shares, or is otherwise not covered by the trade-thru rule.