While a number of brokers will connect you directly to the same market, there are important structural differences among brokers that have direct consequences for traders. Some brokers connect their clients’ orders directly to an external liquidity provider, while others process and manage their clients’ orders internally. The way in which your broker operates internally or through an external provider will also impact the speed of execution, slippage, and price accuracy of the order filled, even when the market appears to be in the same condition.

Retail traders believe that the prices shown on various trading platforms are identical, however, the price will depend on where and how your order is filled. Brokers have to make a routing decision for every trade they execute to determine where the order will go: either into the open market or remain internal. The process of how a broker makes these routing decisions is not visible to the client but has a significant impact on your trading results.

Execution quality can be defined not only by charts and spreads, but also by the broker’s infrastructure, liquidity partnerships, and type of business model they operate under. Genuine market access brokers usually provide clients with more competitive price quotes and faster execution, and understanding this difference will also provide the trader with an explanation for why there are some fill discrepancies and performance issues that cannot be explained by trading strategies alone.