It sucks, but I would rather sit at the nbbo on INET then let the AMEX Spec pad his pockets with my order
Always have more than one acount. Always have 2 ISPs on diff. backbones. Always have more than 1 computer. Always have a back-up power supply. Redundancy isn't efficient-but it'll save your ass. This is a huge must for anyone trading $$$ or size.
http://www.nasdaqnews.com/about/Reports/Primer_on_Trade_Through_2-10-03.pdf Note that ETF's were exempt from the trade through rule until March 4, 2004. It seems that that's about when these shenanigans started.
Well, supposedly the SEC is pondering a rule that would allow investor's to "opt out" of the trade through rule. The AMEX is toast then.
Today, I confirmed that this is not specific to IB, or at least that they are not alone. Using Assent/Hammer, I tried to hit an SMH bid on INET that was 0.01 below the AMEX bid. My order was marked up to join the INET offer, 0.01 above the AMEX bid.
Its really a requirement if you have a fund. It kills me to split my account-it's just not nearly as efficient otherwise. But when you have a fund to manage, you MUST have back-ups. So you take a 20% reaming----just because your broker was down the first 20 minutes (when you could have unloaded at a 3-5% loss)-I would expect lawsuits from your fundholders claiming negligence if this were to actually occur-its always the big events when a broker is down. All depends on leverage, instruments traded, & entity structure. DON"T TAKE CHANCES. Nothing worse than being right & not being able to do anything about it! bzzzzzzzz
Isn't that what people use a single clearing firm with multiple brokers for - to put their money in one place, yet have multiple execution platforms? You still have some commonality in that if your clearing firm's overnight process fails, your brokers may not know your balances/positions, but you still may be able to trade. Or is everything online and electronic now, and if the clearing firm is down, you're down no matter what? And yeah, it kills me to split my meager assets between two accounts, too, but I wouldn't do without it for a second. I wish an arrangement like I described above were available to "little guys".
Agreed and agreed.... I do not trade all that much any more so it isn't that much of an issue. 95% of the assets in today were in there 6 months ago and 80% were there 9 months ago. You get the point. I do need a back up. That is something that I am going to have to work on in the near future. Seems like I spend more time playing games on the operating side than making money for people. Clearly, not what I signed up for. Hopefully, in a few more weeks, I'll be all set to trade futures and can ignore SMH. I'm getting sick of it anyway. Plenty of days the SP drops 10 handles and you're short 70 smh and SMH closes up 30c or something and just just sit there and wanna reach out and strangle intel.