At Island, no one is in a position to use time-place advantages to profit from your trade, and everyone has access to the same information, at the same time. Market makers are given hundreds, even thousands, of limit orders. This is invaluable information. For example, if the market maker saw a large number of open buy orders for stock XXYZ and a decreasing amount of open sell orders for stock XXYZ, they would know that the price of XXYZ would, most likely, go up. The Island matching engine, in essence, does away with these advantages.
Island puts the information in the hands of the investor.
With Island, the same information is available to everyone, at the same time. Each time an order is received the Island limit order book is instantaneously scanned to determine if there s a matching order. If there is a matching order, the order is executed immediately. In the event that there is no matching order, the order is displayed on the Island BookViewer SM until a matching order is received or the order is canceled. All orders entered are displayed and matched on strict price-time priority without regard to the number of shares or the identify of the party entering the order.