Hi All,

We've been reasonably happy with IB so far and their transaction fees are very competitive and reasonable for "small" transactions. However, our trading system is pretty much up and running now and we were thinking of ramping up and investing more money. However, this means our parcel sizes will get much bigger and the brokerage will go up in an almost linear fashion. Many other brokers offer a different model for fees (fixed price + ECN fees). As we use SMART order routing and wish to continue doing so, I was wondering if anyone can share their experiences with the two models of pricing. Our average share trade is probably going to increase to around 5000+ shares. On IB that's $25+ per trade. We do hundreds of trades per month!

Any opinions?

Once you ramp up your volume, you can certainly call them up and try to negotiate a different fee schedule.

The other option is to ask them if they offer a "wrap" type fee schedule, where they charge you a fixed percentage of assets, rather than a per transaction fee.

In case anyone is interested, IB came to the party and offered us a better deal. It's not as good as some other brokers but they pay good interest on our funds which makes up the difference.

one more thing......their support is so much better once they put you into the "pro" category. Fast response to emails, direct telephone numbers, etc.