conbar, Ameritrade is good specially if you choose to use direct routing options in Ameritrade. They have been offering that option for quite some time now. (Unlike choosing ARCA from IB,) you can use ARCA's re-routing options that will re-route your order to different venues , On the other hand, Scottrade and Izone (Ameritrade-Izone) do not have direct routing options. If prompt dedicated customer service is not an issue, then IB is definitely good for low to mid-volume day-traders. IB has direct access routings, low margin rate and offer per-share pricing. I encountered all of them.
no Donkell, I am not planing to daytrade. I am planig either to: swing - base decisions on 60m timeframe (and use daily and weekly timeframes as complimentary). hold positions from 2days to 1.5weeks. place stop-losses according to 60m volatility/60m patterns. I dont know how to explain, every stock has different volatility. lets take CSCO as an example. Under this (swing) strategy I will be happy if my 50000 CSCO order will be filled within 5-7 cents, assuming the market is calm. Am I saying very stupid things here? or if execution will pose a big problem in 60m tmeframe, I will use daily timeframe as the main one and use weekly timeframe as complimentary. here I will place stop-losses according to daily volatility.
that's what I dont like I also dont like the fact that Ameri and Scott sell a lion share of their order flow to third parties...
conbar, ARCA has the capability to re-route your order if other venues have the better prices. Because of ARCA's re-routing capability, it's popular. ARCA charges a fraction of a cent extra per share if your order gets executed after re-routing. IB doesn't let its clients use ARCA's re-routing capability. IB uses its own auto-routing (smart routing). Ameritrade eats ARCA's extra charge for re-rouitng. You can search for ARCA rerouting in "Order Execution" forum to know more. You might want to ask the brokers directly how much the discounted brokers sell their orders to 3rd parties. They should have it published somewhere. Lowtrades have it published. Ameritrade has the options to choose direct routing venues if you want. (You have to select it from Preferences menu.) Ameritrade and AmeritradeIzone are different in terms of their features and commissions. AmeritradeIzone, Scottrade, etc. don't have the options to choose direct routings. They let their auto-route decide the venues.
the above is called arca proactive. arca is the only ecn i believe that reroutes. this is huge as the fills are great on markets. i suspect ib doesn't do this because it's .001 more per share