Best Rates on German/European Share Trading

Could someone point out the best rates on trading European shares? Take Xetra for example, IB's rates of .1% of the transaction value still amounts to a hefty price. Several times more than their US rates in fact.

Would appreciate good suggestions. Thanks!

 

the problem is that you have a different commission schedule from the exchanges than in us.

deutsche börse charges anywhere from 0,70 - 21€ or 0,0056% for xetra trades (0,7 € is min, 21 € is cap, this is comparable with ecn fees), thats why you wont get any commission structure like in the us with cts/share.

ib, etrade germany and sino are the main brokerages with the best commsission rates for germany.

you know ib, so i dont have to tell you anything about it. etrade germany has fairly low commissions, but their service and system suck. sino is a small brokerage house where you gotta put up at least 50k €, but you get a top notch system and a superb service.
afaik you can get as low as €12,50 flat + xetra fees (www.sino.de).

 

Thanks, I didn't realize the culprit is with the exchanges' fee structure. Too bad, because this prohibits certain strategies from working. Wonder what their purpose is in keeping fees so high?

 

@Indextrader

Try Stocknet.de.
They have a 6 month introductory offer of ca. €2.49 (if I remember rightly) per trade on XETRA up to orders of ca. €20.000. After the 6-month trial period, their prices for XETRA are still low by German standards. They also claim to be introducing trading at the regional exchanges (Frankfurt etc) in early November 2003. A good alternative to IB I think, though I have not yet used it myself.

 

they´re playing monopoly. severaö other european exchanges use the xetra plattform (like suisse virtx) and they´re makin big $$$ with it.

just to give you a small look behind the scenes:

the deutsche börse introduced the central counterparty (ccp) some months ago, which means that if you make a trade, you dont settle with your counterpart directly(deutsche bank bought 1000 shares from dresdner bank for example - that was was the way before the change) but everybody has to settle their trades with the ccp (you buy 1000 shares from the ccp).
before the change, there were rumors for about 1-2 years about how it will be introduced and what advantages it will bring. everybody was looking for a reduction in price because even back then the deutsche börse was way expensive.
but guess what, when it was introduced there was an increase in prices!
you can see them in my first post in this thread; what i forgot is the ccp-fee, which is an additional €0,51 per counterparty on a trade. now you might wonder how many counterparties do you have per trade? that differs from time to time. if you´re lucky you have only one, if you´re not so lucky, you have 25 on a 1000 shares trade.

i cannot understand why nobody is sueing the deutsche börse for abusing their monopol. europeans are reuglating about every market, but nobody cares about this bs. for my broker the ccp fee means an increase of costs in the mid 5 digits.

if you´re looking for a broker for the german market, you gotta be careful, because every brokerage house handles the exchange-fees a bit different: with some the xetra fees are a pass - through fee, with some not etc...

kev