IB jumps the gun on pennies

Interactive Brokers (IB) announced last week it had started offering penny trades to customers, even before options exchanges begin a pilot penny programme in January.

In the first known service of its kind in the options industry, IB started to offer penny trading on all options using new technology allowing customers to make bids or offers in penny increments. If customers found a bid and offer at the same penny price, that trade would then be sent to either Boston Options Exchange (BOX) or International Securities Exchange (ISE) to be...