JSOP - big swinger throwing 10 million shares around at a time. LOL. According to the TOS 606 report, they are getting paid .0035 cents per share for order flow from Direct edge and .0022 by the likes of Citadel and Citi. How much of that are you getting back? Yep, you are surely saving big bucks on that size you're throwing around. https://www.thinkorswim.com/tos/client/complianceWorld/orderRoutingReports/AMTD-2055-0414.pdf BTW, here's a hint before you mention you only place limit orders etc etc... Via IB if you direct a liquidity providing order to a number of exchanges, you get the exchange rebate and can obtain negative commissions.
So you are still perpetuating the myth that IB does not receive PFOF? You've been corrected on this issue previously. IB's own 606 acknowledges payments as high as .22 received from routing orders to venues such as Jane Street Execution Services. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/download/4Q_2017_IB_ORDER_ROUTING_REPORT.pdf
IB is still the worst place for automated traders... understand: -if you choose to direct route your orders outside of their smart router (which is smart for them), they apply ADDITIONAL insane fees..i tried IEX, i got of course much less adverse selection, but my order cost went from 0.0035 to 0.0075/90....pure theft of IB!! - also, my server is in NJ, one millis from NY4 and order ack delay with IB is CRAZY pure theft again, 40millis!!! i have been speaking to them and they say they plane to move to NY5 in few months... i dont consider to be tiny, as i trade 60Kshares a day, around...having spoken to brokers who provide you around 2milliseconds access to exchange (industry standart), but they recquire 5-6K usd fees min min min... ib stay finally the best place to stay..i mean you have to accept to be f.... when i trade a lot, i see really good fees...around 0.0022-25....and sometimes if your order is in contrary side of the market you are sure to be executed by their dark pool, i mean IB dark pool where behind is surely a prop firm like timber hill, of course they respect the NMS rule, they "improved" your order of 0.00000000000000001....but the real advantage is that your order cost almost zero fees. They send your orders where you are sure to be adverse selected. if every algo traders at IB would realize how much they miss pnl per day because of missed order due to the fact that IB manage your order in a such a way that they want to take max profit of it, every of us would sue IB in a class action....they are already some cases with darks pool of credit suisse and deutsche bank dark pool.... we are too tiny separately, it will never happen....Mr peterfly invented the best business model in the world.
I am glad that you mentioned this. At first, I was actually getting some exchange rebate and at time were even getting negative commissions at times when I was directing my limit order to some of the exchanges that pay bigger rebates on limit orders but not for long. All of sudden I was getting charged 100 times of the commissions as before so I enquired. I discovered that IB hold orders on its server and then only sending them to exchanges when they are marketable so basically turning limit orders to market orders and since on many of the exchanges, market orders are charged higher commissions than limit orders, you get hit with the hefty commissions and this is how IB gets you even if you direct order limit orders. I was getting puzzled why all of sudden the sudden rise in my commissions for the same order size and same order type and this is what I found out. They confirmed this in writing. I remember @Robert Morse mentioned this in one of his posts that IB holds orders in their system, so this is really confirmed. If you trade with IB, be aware, this is the kind of tricks that IB plays. Don't get fooled by IB's "Smart order" routing, the % lower commissions than other brokers, that's all bulls. All of IB's algorithms are designed to hike up as much as commissions for IB as possible at the expense of the traders. They are NOT lower than other brokers. Brokers like Tastyworks (another broker that I am with) and TOS charges you lot lower commissions and NO tricks. So if I am getting the rebates anyway, I might as well trade with a broker that just charges a flat fee for whatever order you use and none of the shenanigans. I am a trader. I just want to trade. I am not interested in playing these broker order-routing games. If I can save some commissions in order-routing, if not, then I go with the broker that gives me the lowest fees and that's no longer IB. Good riddance!!!
And they even state right on their commission page that they even take some of the rebates and only pass on a portion of it.
IB is the worst place for ALL kind of traders. We should sue. All we need is will, time and a lawyer who's willing to work pro-bono. What IB is doing is not right. As a broker, it has a fiduciary duty is to get our orders executed in the best way possible and in the lowest cost not at the highest cost possible to us so it can get a bigger cut.
Were the orders that were resting at IB's servers LMT orders? Or were it order types which are "synthesised" by IB? For example if you use a stoploss order it is synthesised by IB as the exchange does not know that order type. Once the condition for such a stoploss order is triggered does IB send a order type (MKT) which is native to that exchange to it. In such a case would the alternative be to not have the stoploss order rest at IB's server, but in your own computer algorithm. And submit a LMT order to IB once the condition is met. The disadvantage of this approach is of course that you need to monitor prices continuously and that your code gets more complex.
I've been trading with IB for many years now and what you are saying here is not true. A directed limit order will always post to the exchange it was directed to. It is not held.
Agree, JSOP is FOS as I can see my orders on an exchange. Conditional orders of course remain on servers. Limit orders go to exchanges and the rebates and fill quality is all the proof I need.