My machines are co-located as close to the data as physically possible. My different algorithms do everything they can to be at the "top of the pile". I know there are alot of people in my boat. We have been successful for years and continue to be. That has only been possible because we have never let anything slide. Beyond political reasons, it really doesn't make sense to me for this change to not happen. Everyone benefits with speed increases. Some know the benefits, to others its simply transparent. It's not like my fixes would hurt their other clients. Improper implementation could hurt due to downtime, but that's where you have the right people do the job. These are real issues to alot of volume on the street. Brokers just need to wake up. A 10-15k machine investment from head to tail for one broker would make this a non issue. Then add in the programming hours to have the right people optimize the OS and hardware. Done deal. No politics and everyone is happy. Even the people who were never sad.
Here's an interesting question: I know that Genesis likes to come on Elite and announce their ping times to all of the ECN's with regards to line latency. Good for them. Atleast their heart is in the right place. What if a broker actually came onto Elite Trader and gave real stats that were beyond "ping" times and those performance results hit my level of expectation (which is also a select fews level of expectation here as well)? How fast do you think a mass exodus of volume would migrate to that broker? It would actually be pretty funny to see for all of the people who know what I am talking about. Talk about a business shift, but my guess is that any broker that did it right now would only expose themselves for the weaknesses they have to everyone else who knows how to truly measure latency.
I didn't make an "assumption". I made an observation. Over and over again. And I studies the various mechanisms involved. Specialist executions of SPY orders, taking liquidity, are suboptimal. The possibility of getting filled at a better price than that quoted exists, but on average, the price you get will be much worse, and the bad fills will outweigh the good ones. The reasons for this are the same reasons that the world is moving to automatic execution of equities orders, rather than manual specialist execution. If you want to defend the specialist system, then you are entitled to your opinion, but I don't think that people interested in this thread would take such a position seriously, and I think it would be off-topic.
I never said I got "non-fills". Read my comments again. If you are taking liquidity, not offering it, and your order is marketable, you will almost certainly get an execution. The question is what price will you get, and how long will you wait. If your order is routed to a specialist, you will also lose the ability to cancel it reliably and quickly. If your order has a sufficiently conservative limit price, then you must also be concerned about the possibility of a non-fill, but I did not discuss this possibility.
I agree with Mr Rockford on this one. The discussion on this thread is not about piss ant traders who's executions are just chasing everyone else around anyways. The topic raised here by Sig. is one that impacts everyone but is only relevant to those whose endeavors would ever lead them down a path to notice it. What is being discussed here is as much about creating a grass roots movement for change as it is about the actual technical aspects of the issue. Rockford is right about "political-organizational limitations at brokerages", truth is it is an issue that I think most brokers would take the perspective of 'well it's good enough for the majority of pikers out there who pay the high cost commissions that pay our salaries so don't fuck with it'!
My viewpoint is that it is silliness. While this guys servers are colocated at an ISP, my servers have PTP connections to all the exchanges I trade. Not once have I ever felt that I needed anything faster nor do I believe that it would make a hill of beans of difference even if I were sitting at an ISP for the sake of execution. If you were arbing baskets stocks against futs or ETFs, it would make a difference, but then you wouldn't be sitting here talking about it The point is one in a thousand traders on ET might effected by an extra five milliseconds added to RT times. This guy is not one of them and neither are any of you. nitro
"And by the way, I resent Nitro dismissing this thread as silliness. I think it is the mark of arrogance to dismiss, as silly, that which one doesn't understand. I think we all profit when we try to understand other viewpoints, even if they might be wrong, rather than belittle other viewpoints." I agree 100%. It's just that kind of thinking that is the problem. I have alot of respect for Nitro (and still do) because I know he has worked hard to get where he is. If I can give him and any like him advice: Always be open to the fact that no matter how good you are at something, there is always more to learn and the moment one is most vulnerable is when they feel they have it down and when the arrogance comes through.
Nitro, here you go: You run PTP connections. This means you are high-speed trading. This also means you have a really fast machine. Let's say newer hardware dual or quad and can do super number crunching. Great. What is the sleep to wake time on your Kernel? Do you know?
I agree that I am not affected by the technical issues raised by this thread's originator. I never said I was affected by them. I also, quite frankly, lack the technical knowledge to determine whether it is you who is right, or him, as to whether his technical issues are valid. My concern was the retail broker industry-wide mediocrity of equity order routing algorithms, which do affect lots of traders, and which seem to arise from the same political-organizational issues as do the specific technical issues he was raising (assuming his technical issues are valid). I am quite sure that I disagree with your dismissing his concerns as silliness. This type of attitude runs counter to the purposes of a discussion board. I think you can express disagreement with a person, or demonstrate that he is wrong, without being so disrespectful and humiliating, and without trying to make a show of how superior you are. If he really is so silly, you still have nothing to gain by saying so, unless you enjoy insulting people. If you choose to make it your business to insult people, then you make it much less likely that your participation in discussions will be of benefit to yourself or to others. If you are going to participate on this website, why not do it intelligently, by showing some respect for others, even when they are wrong? I also agree that one of the mistakes people often make, after they have achieved something of importance in life, is to underestimate the value of the viewpoints of others who have not made comparable achievements, but who still have something to offer.