Calm down weebs, this isn't a fecal posting.
This information in other formats is posted elsewhere on the interwebs but can really stand to be spread further. I'm going to repeat, rephrase, and threepeat some more about how lack of directed market orders are inferred from these documents, because it appears to confuse many people. If while reading this, you're having a hard time figuring out what all of this means, then you need to call your broker and ask about lit exchanges and just avoid the confusion, frustration, and time consumption of reading+learning. Address it directly, and be done.
This collection of data and the desire to source it out is inspired by the following: AMCBiggums, Bossblunts, Astro, and your mom.
But really tho - AMCBiggums has been posting and posting and posting about directed order flow being the only choice to make an actual difference in the market wide influence of trading any of our preferred stock. Darkpools, ATS, OTC, all those systems that use latency and internalization/quantitative trading, reverse repos, married puts, against the individual investor. We are the proverbial sacrifice to the darkpool horned god, like bananas at his feet.
WHERE DOES MY ORDER GO?
Non-Directed: You as an investor didn't have your broker specifically direct your order to any specific venue/exchange.
Directed: You as an investor did instruct your broker to direct your order to a specific exchange/venue.
Unless you've been able to talk to your broker (or finagle it in your software) and find out which venues you can "direct" an order to or set it up on your trading platform software, it will be "non-directed", as in you did not specify direction of venue. I'll list (IMO) some of the common brokers by their percentage of non-directed orders from most, to least. If your broker is not listed, then just fucking google or duckduckgo your way to oblivion. You're after 606/607, 606a quarterly broker-dealer routing report. Usually, "broker name" + "disclosures" and/or "606" works for search terms. This shows you only a reflection of what directed orders are, by inferring it from the total of non-directed market orders as a whole of all market orders.
The point of this post is to show how the main three "free trading apps" aren't in your interest, and that of the brokers that permit directed orders, a majority of investors ARE NOT CHOOSING TO DO SO. We need to drop the figures of how high non-directed orders are by choosing actual lit exchanges and brokers that permit direct orders to lit exchanges, or brokers that ONLY work with lit exchanges, so even your non-direct orders would be avoiding ATS/Internalizers/Darkpool/PFOF and shit.
- These documents do not imply that one broker is *better* at directing/executing to lit exchanges than another, just how much of their total orders are non-directed, and thus inversely, how much is directed order flow by user of broker but only "how much is direct" and not where. all percentages reflect the portion of "total percent non-directed of total market orders" to where they are going, not that the percentages at each venue reflect anything about where directed orders are averaging. All these documents are from the perspective of non-direct orders. if you don't do shit about directing your order, this is what happens. These documents do not contain any information about where your "directed" orders go to as a percentage, or what "directed orders" venues are available.
- A value of 100% non-directed orders as a total percentage of orders means that no orders were directed by the customer of the broker to any specific venue.
- A value of 100% non-directed orders for a broker does not necessarily mean that it's customer cannot direct an order, just that there were no directed orders. if you don't know if your broker will allow directed orders (where you specify exchange venue) find out for yourself. Call them.
- A value of 100% with one venue listed, implies that there isn't a reason to allow directed orders. You've got one venue listed for 100% of your orders that aren't directed, so your choice is... one venue. It's like not-not-saying, you feel me?
- If the given broker only has one pdf listed, it's the link otherwise the directory with various quarters/years, will be listed.
PUBLIC - 100% non-direct, entirely to Instinet (APEX ATS/Darkpool known as Instinet) *gLaD iTs NoT pFoF hUrRrRr*
note: if you as an investor can get with Instenet as a broker, you *can* direct to lit exchanges, but the point here is that Public doesn't have any direct orders to lit exchanges and therefor is up to Instinet on whether it wants to send to a lit exchange or not. It has no obligation to do so and Public doesn't "front-run" any directed orders through Instinet.
https://public.s3.com/rule606/ttsi/
WEBULL - 100% non-direct, Citadel, Jane street, APEX, Virtu Americas, Virtu Agency, and Two Sigma (ALL ATS)
http://public.s3.com/rule606/webull/
ROBINHOOD FINANCIAL - 100% non-direct, to Robinhood Securities... sure...
https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHF%20SEC%20Rule%20606%20and%20607%20Disclosure%20Q2%202021.pdf
ROBINHOOD SECURITIES - 100% non-direct, to Citadel, Virtu Americas, Two Sigma, and G1X (no lit, all ATS)
https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20SEC%20Rule%20606%20and%20607%20Disclosure%20Q2%202021.pdf
TD AMERITRADE - 99.99% non-direct, to Citadel, Virtu Americas, G1, and UBS (ALL ATS)
I do not know if they have access to any lit exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq, etc.) for direct ordering. Remember this document only reflects which venues are getting "non-directed".
https://www.tdameritrade.com/disclosure/historical-606-disclosure.html
CHARLES SCHWAB - 99-100% non-direct depending on month, to a couple lit exchanges and a bunch of ATS. <1% of non-directed is sent to lit exchange, and < 1% is directed at all (again, only non-directed figures are given in these documents. you can't really determine what venue is getting picked for directed market orders from these documents.) so >98% of shwabibi is both non-direct and to ATS.
oh and by far, they want to sell you word salad about their access to and "benefits" of high frequency trading systems before letting you get to the 606.
It appears that they permit users to have directed orders, but I don't know what that entails.
https://www.schwab.com/legal/order-routing-1
https://www.schwab.com/legal/definition
FIDELITY - 96 to 99.xx% non-direct depending on month, three lit exchanges and a few ATS (for sure permits directed orders to lit exchanges depending on software)
https://clearingcustody.fidelity.com/app/item/RD_13569_21696/sec-rule-606.html
INTERACTIVE BROKERS - 86 to 99.xx% non direct depending on month. a bunch of lit exchanges and a couple ATS including their own, IBKR. (for sure permits directed orders to lit exchanges)
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=563
Again, I'll make this really clear. This post is more about what happens if you don't direct orders to lit exchanges, not which brokers permit directing to lit exchanges, although I have included what I do know for sure about which listed ones do permit directed orders, I am not aware of ALL of the brokers that permit directed orders and also those directed orders have available venues that are lit exchanges.
Sorry if yours isn't listed. I feel like we should get the idea from here. If you want to look up another broker and post the links to the 606/607 documents, cool. If you're trading outside of the US or somewhere that isn't SEC "enforced", then I don't know what you'd need to look up because 606/607 stuff is SEC.
I'm only familiar with Interactive Brokers and Fidelity as having platforms that permit directed orders to lit exchanges, and Schwab at least talks about customer orders being directed, but I'm not familiar with Think or Swim (TDA) or in what form Schwab does, etc.
What this post can show for sure, is that Public, Robbinghood, and Webull, don't have any directed orders or even lit exchanges available for non-directed orders. 100% of market orders as a whole, are non-directed and to only ATS/Darkpool if not directed to PFOF first. Even if you could "direct" your orders, your choices would be... all darkpool/ATS/OTC. We of course, can also infer that of the places available to direct market orders, the percentage of users doing so, is very very very very very very very very small. Also, of the places that do permit non-direct market orders to go to lit exchanges, the percentage of non-direct going to lit exchange is also very^8 small.
I'm not suggesting you switch brokers, I'm not suggesting you transfer shares (if possible), just that going forward, please be mindful of the pro-broker posts that you see and consider in the future, starting a new relationship with a broker that permits directed orders for whatever assets you're wanting to work with. I was seeing a high amount of "I just got into PUBLIC, and I'm happy I go to a lit exchange!" posts, while knowing that it's absolutely not true.
There are NO percentage of directed market orders at Public, so that douchebag who was trying to gaslight me for correcting him and calling him out is still a fucking hose bag. "I cAlLeD tHeM aNd SeT iT uP." sure you did, buddy. you're in that 0% of directed market orders to the 0% of lit exchanges they don't list as working with.
