Scalping or not, as a trader, you can always benefit from the price improvement offered by various brokers. In my experience, #1 is Fidelity, mostly the price improvement is better than 50% of the spread, it is amazing how Fidelity is able to deliver such great price improvement, exactly like they claim, it might because they don’t sell order workflow, I don’t know if they run their own HFT, but obviously they give more of their profits to customers. #2 Charles Schwab #3 TD Ameritrade #4 E*TRADE What is your experience with various brokers? Please share, thank you very much for your time!
As an alternative to Price improvement maybe consider a platform with fast order entry, fast execution, choice of routes were some give rebates. E.g. Buy 5000 XYZ, sent to ARCA, add liquidity by Buying on the bid. We charge $4.50/trade, ARCA rebates $10 for a net $5.50 credit to you.
Buying on the bid bears big risk, if you are able to buy stocks on the bid, there are lots of sellers and heavy selling then, the stock mostly goes downward. The minute your order goes through, you are in the negative. In other words, if the stock goes upward, the chance of you buying on the bid is very rare!
With a fast moving momentum stocks, with these route you’re getting price improvement, do you find that you’re buying on the ask at the price that it was when you hit “buy”or is there a delay? I have been told many times that people are getting price improvement, but the stock could be anywhere from $.02 to $.08 higher by the time they get an execution on these free routes. I’m being told this almost daily by prospective clients looking to avoid that.
This should only be measured in a quant fashion not by some anecdotal opinions. What is Schwabs price improvement over NBBO vs Etrades?
It is just observation, not scientifically statistically calculated, but you as experienced trader should be able to figure out very quickly if the price improvement is good once you see a couple of price filled. I have no idea about Charles Schwab price improvement over NBBO. Based on my observations, In average, Schwab may be able to give you 30%-40% of the spread price improvement while E*TRADE gives you 10%- 20% of the spread price improvement.
Anyone has experience in the price improvement of those small brokers, such as TradeStation and TradeZero? Please share, thank you so much!
Best approach is take say 1,000 of your Charles Schwab executions and compare against NBBO at the time. It should give you an avg price improvement figure. IBKR gives me most price improvement here in Canada compared to Wealthsimple, TD, Questrade. Never used Schwab, TD, or Etrade.
In my experience, The common approach used by big brokers to calculate the price improvement is the difference between the filled price and the bid price for sell order, the difference between the filled price and the ask price for buy order. They don’t compare against NBBO, Fidelity specifically lists the price improvement they give you.