Okay, I opened an account. I’ll provide feedback if interested. What is the most efficient way to fund the account (I’m transferring some cash from Fidelity)? Thanks
Hi, I’d be interested to hear about your experienceed quality of executions at Tradier. I used a free brokerage before (Zecco at the time, it’s no longer independent), but felt like executions weren’t as good as at the fee-based brokers.
Because I have accounts with IB, Tradier, and Fidelity, I’d be happy to do some experiments regarding trade execution. Just tell me what you’d like me to do–what kinds of trades would convince you that one might be better than another or not.
Yuval,
This would be more for the community that for me—they have more interest in limit orders than I do.
But there can be some differences in execution for simple limit orders in my experience. My limited experience suggests that the difference comes from the ORDER OF EXECUTION.
By this I mean, you would think that the first person to place a limit order at a certain price would be the first to have it executed when someone wants to cross the BID/ASK spread or when someone places a market order. My limited experience and research suggest that the rules are different for different exchanges: with the pros being able to step to the front of the line at times. Maybe the size of the order determines the order of execution, for example.
BTW, this may be one of the problems with the PEG algorithm you use at IB. Your order moves and you move to the back-of-the-line each time it moves (last-in-line and not a pro to know how to step in front of the line).
So my suggestion. Put the same limit order for IB and Tradier on in the morning. Do Tradier’s order first to give it the benefit of the doubt over the IB Goliath or flip a coin each time to see which order is placed first. Then see which has the better execution. I.e., number of complete fills, partial fills and not filled. You could check for price improvement too—but I suspect you are right that this is not going to be much of a factor differentiating the different brokers.
This answers the most important question in my mind. And in addition, there is no doubt in my mind that IB will not do better (unless, perhaps, you specify the exchange at IB). So little risk in this study.
Anyway, truly just a suggestion with no point other than what would be good information for P123 members and perhaps a bit of advertising for Tradier.
If there is no significant difference there would be no rational reason to continue using limit orders at IB (for most of us).
-Jim
Yuval, I’m just a retail trader, but with me it was just a sense that the orders a Zecco (the no fee broker) were a bit more stingy to fill. My perception is based solely on trading at different brokers through the years and it’s not scientific. Just a perception. I currently have accounts at Fidelity, Schwab, IB, and Wells Fargo (no fee for 100 trades per year) and am happy with executions at all of these. Zecco seemed to have below average fills based on comparisons with others I’d used, and eventually I felt like giving up the pennies on any kind of volume offset the value of free trade. In the past I’d also used Scottrade and Trade King, and I felt they were both somewhere in the middle (I think both of these got merged into Ameritrade, but I have no recent experience with them).
I guess after a period of use I’d just be interested in your general sense of executions. If you trade at open, do you get opening price? Same at close. If stock trades at or touches your limit do you get filled? How often does a market order or limit at the ask actually get filled (or does it move as soon as you enter the order)? etc.
I liked TradeKing but to be honest I did not know enough then to have an informed opinion.
FWIW, from the Tradier website: “Like the other cofounders, Jason previously worked at TradeKing….”
Most (or the quote implies all) worked at TradeKing before it was sold.
-Jim
When will automatic daily rebalancing of Live Strategies be available?
You mean daily rebalance with orders automatically sent to broker? If so, there are a few things we need to do to make it safer. We need to handle day of trade splits & ticker changes. We also need to adjust the # of shares based on live prices. And think of other safety checks, like maybe some options for handling stocks with big jumps
Yes, ultimately with trade. But even now I don’t see daily rebalancing working for Live Strategies. I setup one w/o error but it’s doesn’t automatically rebalance. Is that expected?
EDIT: Ok, I see now that I can save a daily rebalance model but it won’t rebalance more frequently than weekly. See; https://www.portfolio123.com/port_summary.jsp?portid=1583114
Hi Jim,
I think this depends on whether the broker sends the order to a dark pool (and which dark pool the broker uses).
In addition to IB I use TD (in Canada so maybe not exactly the same in TD Ameritrade). TD quite frequently gives better fills than the limit orders I submit – but I’ve never noticed IB giving me a better price than my limit orders (perhaps IB does sometimes but not as often as TD). This morning I placed 4 trades with TD. Two of the trades filled at the limit order price. One filled at 1 cent better which more than covered the commission. The final one filled at a 4/10 cent price improvement which covered part of the commission. I’ve even got price improvements when the displayed bid-ask spread is 1 cent (regular stocks, not penny stocks). Sometimes 1/10 or 2/10 of a cent. All very mysterious to me.
A couple years ago I called TD (in Canada) to asked more about how the dark pools work. They would not tell me a thing. I don’t know if all my orders go to a dark pool or just some. Nor do I know which dark pool it might be. Perhaps TD is just matching me up with another TD customer who has a limit order on the other side and both of us get price improvement.
It might take a lot of trades to trying a figure things out if the broker is using dark pools for some or all orders.
Brian
Hi Brian,
I could not agree more with everything you have written.
Most of us get no benefit from IB. Yuval does not see an advantage with the algo he tried and o806 does not seem to get particularly good fills on his limit orders. And commissions can be extremely high for any volume on low priced stocks.
Yes!!!
IMHO, unless you are a big fish you will not find yourself swimming the dark pools at IB. Their order routing is likely to take you elsewhere.
The SEC rules require all brokers to disclosed where their orders are routed and whether they are paid for their routing. I encourage people to find this (it will not be on the front page) and correct me on any false impressions—sincerely. It has been a year or two since I looked at this closely. I will not try to remember (and quote) the details exactly or dig through that again today. And maybe other people pay IB for their routing now. Maybe.
One thing people say when defending IB and other brokers is that the law requires “BEST EXECUTION.” People will have to agree that “best execution” DOES NOT MEAN BEST PRICE under the rules. No doubt IB can show the regulators where you got filled a millisecond quicker (speed of fill and likelihood of fill are part of the best execution rules).
In fact, the people that run the dark pools are happy to quickly grab a market order at the BID or ASK for the purpose of placing the stock in their dark pool for execution midway between the bid and ask. Remember, brokers who do block-trading have large orders to be filled over the day (or multiple days) and there may be little risk of not having someone on the other side of the trade.
Everyone is happy. You get BEST EXECUTION (man that was fast). IB gets paid for routing (and also gets fast, guaranteed executions in return for their routing). The people with access to the dark pools (not you) save money.
You can (or used to be able to) find this in the required disclosures. Anyway, do your own research. Thank you Brian and Yuval for sharing your experience.
-Jim
Looks like Canadians are out of luck not just now but for the future as well.
Marco —
I understand that IB announced that starting this month (Oct.’19), they will be offering zero commission trading.
Since trading costs previously were IB’s glaring weakness compared to other brokerages, this obviously would negate that issue.
My question to you is now that this IB weakness has been removed, will Port123 pivot to further differentiate itself? If so, what changes is Port123 considering?
Thank You.
Eric
Well it’s still IB… Let’s see how it works. Will you have to always use market orders? If you will use limit orders you will need real time price which I belive are $5/mo. And so on.
Why do you say IB’s glaring weakness is the trading costs?
Tradier offer is compelling for many use cases.
We’ve done a lot of pivoting lately , We’ll have a webinar soon to highlight them (fear not, the research tools are still been worked on).We’re not a broker (not for now at least) and we’re trying to be the interface to brokers. What changes do you think we should consider?
Hi,
Is Tradier Brokerage account open for european customers?
Thank You
Ari
No, I’m afraid not. Sorry about that.
For those who have used Tradier, what has been your experience? I’ve been using TRADE and IB for some time and while not perfect, it’s been working well, so I’m in no rush to change.
Auto trading on Tradier would probably make it worthwhile.
Tradier is not being used a lot. It’s quite hard to get people to switch brokers specially now with 0 commissions. Guess that’s why we’re seeing the beginning of some consolidation . Tradier has an uphill battle for sure. I think Tradier will be adding some monetary incentives soon when you open an account.
In any case, I use it , I use our automatically calculated limit orders , and it works really well for me. We’re still making refinements to the order management and will showcase it soon. I like the fact that Tradier is bare-bones. THey are not distracted by adding tools/research/bloatware like the others.
Does Tradier charge for quotes like IB? (I use IB but get quotes from TD (soon to be Schwab?) to avoid IB fees…
real time level 1 quotes are free for individuals.