The tiny broker office in Chicago that showed me what speed really means

I stopped by a tiny broker shop in the Loop last Tuesday just to ask about their commission structure. The guy at the desk pulled up a trade on his screen and executed it in under 15 seconds from start to finish. He had a custom hotkey setup with three monitors and a dedicated fiber line. I timed him on a second trade and it was even faster. Most brokers I have used take at least 45 seconds to route an order through their platforms. Do any of you guys run custom hotkey setups for faster execution?

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hayden7201mo ago

Totally feel you on this one. It's easy to get caught up in the speed game when you see someone that fast, but you're right that most of us don't need it.

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simoncarr1mo ago

I mean, I get why that would be impressive but maybe it's just me, that 15 second stuff feels like overkill for most people. I've been trading for a while and honestly, speed like that only matters if you're scalping or doing high frequency stuff where every millisecond counts. For normal day trading or swing trading, waiting 45 seconds isn't going to make or break your P&L. It's more about getting the fill price right and not getting front run, not about how fast your fingers can move. Plus, setting up a custom hotkey system with three monitors and a fiber line sounds like a lot of time and money for something that might not even help that much. Most people would probably be better off just learning their platform better instead of chasing that last bit of speed.

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