As I swing trade, I have not felt the need to move from my current broker, Brown, to a direct access firm. But recently I've been unhappy with a few fills and delays. Many of the stocks I enter move quickly when they signal and a delay can often hurt my entry. For anyone who trades with a direct access firm, is there really going to much of a benefit that would make moving worth the hassle? Thanks for your opinions.
$5. market and $10. limit. for stocks. Good margin rates. Rated lowest overall costs by Gomez. But not direct access.
If you are entering predominantly limit orders, then Brown is a good bet, but if you go with market, you'd better check out the firms here on this board like PointDirex, Ib, redwood ect....5.00 and 10.00 is cheap for unlimited shares, but how much is 1 or 2 pennies of lost opportunity on a 1000 shares in and out? I think the majority of these firms offer a max rate anyway
Up to 5000 shares. Then they have a rate over that that incorpoares every share, not just those over the first 5000. My mom had an account with them and we had to sell 15000 shares of a security. The commission would have been about $130 or so if I placed it as one order. Did it in small blocks - it was a thin issue anyway - ran up about $30 in commissions doing it that way. But they also don't have a standalone execution platform, which I've grown to prefer. So between the platform, the cost and the cost due to order flow paybacks, I'd certainly move to a direct access broker.
I appreciate the responses, but the point of my original question goes to the issue of advantages of a direct access broker. Are there REAL advantages that traders have experienced? And if so, what? And does direct access apply to all exchanges, or only benefit stocks routed to certain exchanges such as NYSE or Nasdaq? Thanks.