Some questions about Market Depth and T&S in IB

[spanalyst453]

Hi all, this the first post of mine and first of all a greeting to all of you, wish you guys a Merry Christmas and coming fruitful 2012!

Recently, I have been studying tape reading, and I want to find some more resources on this area to study and the effective way to practice, just want to have you guys' suggestion and sharing on this field.

Moreover, I use IB as my broker, and I wonder if any one of you uses IB for reading the tape? I guess this is not really popular and I found on one talks or suggests IB platform for this purpose. The Market Depth or the T&S windows in IB are reliable or not? How about the Book trader? And I would like to know if any one of you would ever develop your API in IB for tape reading?

Sorry for my stupid questions and thank you very much in advance!!

 

[john fisher]

Never thought about it.. probably no

 

[DionysusToast]

IB doesn't really have a tape. Their time & sales is sampled and therefore is NOT what you see on an unfiltered time & sales.

On the left is IBs Time & Sales and on the right an unfiltered, real Time & Sales.

See the difference?

Best bet is to get a free copy of NinjaTrader from one of their broker partners who will give you free data for 30 days if you tell them you want a trial account.

Do that & you'll see the difference.