Moomoo AMC not routed to HF through PFOF model

$AMC Entertainment(AMC.US)$

Note: This is for Moomoo SG users, do check with your regional representtives for confirmation in any variance.
Note2: Be sure to save this comment, and share it when someone else asks again. URL: https://www.moomoo.com/en-sg/community/feed/106567337967622

Hellooo apes! I have finally gotten enough information to at least say that I have confidence in AMC stocks bought on Moomoo platform not being through Payment-For-Order-Flow model and none of our positions are synthetic, if anyone is still wondering. I'm not here to protect any organisation, one should do their own DD to verify any points below whenever possible.

Before you read on, please take a quick look at link below to understand what Brokerage, Exchanges, Market Maker, custodian are, as I will be using these terms to explain.

https://gendal.me/2014/01/05/a-simple-explanation-of-how-shares-move-around-the-securities-settlement-system/

Few days back I decided to look into the way orders are processed on moomoo as the ape community is starting to boycott brokers that work with Payment-For-Order-Flow (PFOF) model. PFOF can play a part in price manipulated by Market Makers and here is a read on how PFOF of Robinhood is hurting apes:

https://redd.it/ohkr79

Robinhood is not the only broker that is using PFOF model. Some broker have PFOF offered to free-to-use customers, while some broker only have PFOF for options, etc. There is a gray area. That is probably why IBKR Pro is set to YES instead of NO, as they provide IBKR Pro users the "recommendation to use IBKR SmartRouting system.". See below.

Refer to my previous comment, I quote for Interactive Brokers disclosure for Order Routing updated 6/7/2021 :

https://gdcdyn.interactivebrokers.com/Universal/servlet/Registration_v2.formSampleView?formdb=3074

Referring to InteractiveBrokers LITE/PRO user, I quote:

"IBKR-LITE orders for NMS stocks are generally routed to select over-the-counter market-makers ("Market Makers") for handling" << More on this later.

I looked into Interactive Brokers because (at least) for moomoo SG, orders are upstream to Interactive Brokers. Once again, check with your region representative to confirm your regional upstream (if any involved).

I then approached Interactive Brokers (who did not disclose any information to me as I was not a direct account owner on Interactive Brokers).

I was then told to approach AMC IR to check directly. I did this morning, yet to get response, but keep this link, it may be useful to share owners in our next phase.

https://investor.amctheatres.com/corporate-overview/default.aspx

While waiting for their response, responsible me went on digging on publicly available information. I landed on this page:

https://fastsupport.fututrade.com/en-us/topic123?lang=en-us

In the above link,13.4 Payment for Order Flowstates:

"You or the Clearing Broker may receive payments from markets for directing orders to them. The source and amount of these payments are available upon written request."

I then approach FUTU US and FUTU SG separately to request for PFOF statement to find out more about the source and payement records. I took the chance to verify another confusion going around. Here is what I can confirm, the accounts we moomoo SG users, have nothing to do with FUTU US, nor any of their bank protection. I have received this information from FUTU US, stating that FUTU US team did not find any assets flow on my US account. They are aware that I own FUTU SG account and got me to approach FUTU SG if need be:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clearing.asp#how-clearing-works

So in the above mail response, we can be certain, that Interactive Brokers indeed is in the picture, but they only act as our clearer. What is important here, is that the agreement between FUTU SG and Interactive Brokers is "Straight through process". This means that we are not dealing with any Market Maker. Moomoo (Futu) > IB > US exchanges. Refer to paragraphs above for the list of Exchanges we are using. Hence the list of exchanges listed could be the exchanges assigned by Interactive Brokers to Moomoo(Futu) in their agreement. (This, I am still confirming).