Catoosa, Could you please elaborate on this. How could IB's order entry platform possibly be better than RealTick's integrated platform? Thanks, Mike
You can read all about IB's "Trading System" on IB's web site. What I am going to say here is only my opinion for trading stocks: Although IB's TWS has advantages for any size order, the advantages increase significantly for larger orders with the use of "Best Execution". "Best Execution" can break the larger orders up in any number of parts and find the best price for each of the parts. As long as any part of the original order is or becomes marketable, "Best Execution" will seek out and find the best price in the market for all or part of the order and do all this very fast. "Best Execution" works all ECNs and SUPERSOES with a speed that seems like it is working all at the same time. With RealTick, I place my order with one ECN and hope for the best and for the larger orders it seldom works well (I can not begin to see, evaluate, make decisions, reevaluate, change my decisions, place parts of my order with different ECNs, change parts of my order, cancel part of the order and reenter that part with a different ECN, and get the order filled). But, TWS does all of this for me for a fast moving stock in a fast market. On a stock like MSFT, I can get better fills on Ameritrade than trying to hit one ECN on RealTick. IB's software is a trading platform and does not try and do all things as does RealTick. TWS lets the user have any number (with in reason) of one line drop down order lines on one or several stocks all at the same time. TWS does a great job and trying to trade without it is a disadvantage. Catoosa
Thanks for all who posted here. I learn many things in reading all your posts . Another issue ,please: i read in "tradestation securities fees " : Intelligent order-routing technology : is n't it like "BEST" in IB?
Doesn't TS have a $100/month "base data fee" whereas IB for all practical purposes has none? At least that is what I gathered from TS website. Or can I just say I don't want the streaming quotes and get out of the fee? Since I don't trade 150,000 shares a month and I won't have $5 mill in my account it seems that I would have to pay the fee. I'm a cheap bastard and I'm not doing this for a living yet (still have a "real job" whatever that means)
I am switching now from IB to TS and because of the following : IB pro - No monthly fees - Low transaction fees ($0.005 - $0.01) I think with scaling in and out one must only see the $0.01 / share) IB contra - Bad quotes - No integrated trading from level II (you have to adjust the size) - No fractional cents order entry - Very bad customer support TS pro - Total package (charts , level II, execution, backtesting, autotrade etc etc.) - Good quotes (S&P comstock datasource) with good reliabillity - Good customer support (quick) - Fractional order entry (buy limit $ 35.498 in stead of $35.50) TS contra - $110,- monthly data fee (including eMinis) but I cannot imagine myself trading without realtime quotes so also with IB I have to get a subscription to a quote vendor. (Maybe cheaper but no integrated order entry) - 1.2 ct commission but I think with the fractional cent order entry I can trade even cheaper then with IB (no fractional order entry) The difference is only ) $0.002 ct / share Hope this helps
For what it's worth, I use both. TS does my thinking, and IB does my trading. IB is cheap (at my trade volume it's less than half price of TS) and blazingly fast.