Direct Access

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Hello fokes,

would anyone mind telling me what the difference between direct access and trading through a normal 'U' account with Interactive brokers? Is this accunt harder to set up and what are its advantages?

Many thanks,

Charlie
 
Hello fokes,

would anyone mind telling me what the difference between direct access and trading through a normal 'U' account with Interactive brokers? Is this accunt harder to set up and what are its advantages?

Many thanks,

Charlie
Charlie

The Interactive Brokers account that you refer to as a U account has the full title "Direct Access Universal Account". It is a direct access acount.

The following link gives a few more details

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/software/bandwidth.php

Charlton
 
Charlie

The Interactive Brokers account that you refer to as a U account has the full title "Direct Access Universal Account". It is a direct access acount.

The following link gives a few more details

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/software/bandwidth.php

Charlton

Hi Charlton,

thanks for getting back. This is as i thought, spread betting isn't but with a futures broker such as IB it is direct access. The reason i was confused was that when u go to many of the proprietary trading houses part of their marketing is that they have direct access. I therefore presumed that by direct access they were referring to that your orders would be directed from the in house server directly to the exchange rather than from my computer to IB and then routed from IB to the exchange which would obviously slow execusion speeds slightly!

Is this correct or am I missunderstanding the situation? I'm considering moving into on of these companys for about Christmas time and am trying to work out the costs and benefits of doing so.

Cheers Charlie
 
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With futures on CME using IB the time from sending an order to IB, and their relaying it to the exchange, and confirmation from the exchange being relayed back to your pc, is often around half a second. The prop house with a direct connection should manage it considerably less. It will depend on the type of trading you are considering whether the saving of a few hundred milliseconds is worthwhile.
 
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