>>is arca slower find matches though? is selectnet a better route?<<
There's been a lot of discussion on this thread regarding the best order routing. A very big part is a person's trading style and the kind of markets you participate in. A good starting point is to understand the rules by which each route works, because that will then shed light on the things that happen once you press the button. ECN's are to some extent unregulated and the software that runs them is a black box to everyone except the owner and the programmer.
(Of course I'm not saying that it isn't possible that other, shadier things are going on or have gone on with respect to order routing. Before there ever was an ARCA, there was a scandal with Island proprietary trading. Where there's big money and opportunity...)
Everyone has experienced the slowness and misses with ARCA. This could be a result of the 10 second rule which keeps ARCA from moving on to the next MM/ECN until 10 seconds have passed from the time a MM's quote has been hit. If the MM has already filled someone at the quoted price but hasn't yet removed his quote, he has the option of not filling your order, but you are still left hanging for the 10 seconds. This can happen repeatedly in a fast market, and is what I believe to be the reason for ARCA orders hanging.
I don't think there's any advantage to using Selectnet Preference over ARCA since the same thing can happen.
You have to learn by experimenting, and hopefully you will still have some money left when you know enough to win at the game.
OTOH, there's plenty of advantages of the direct order entry systems over the web systems so that if you were doing OK with them, you should be able to do just fine with the DOE. Just work your way in slowly. There are some hazards having to do with the technology, like Colin is experiencing, so you have to take your time and try to figure out what is going on.
I have cable internet and a decent computer and I'm happy with how my system works.
wily |
