It's the way the business is, dirty. Make the main piece look cheap, and they will flock. Most people don't know what the true ECN costs are even though some of them can be looked up on the web. The one's that are harder to find, you'll find them quoted in a wide range. Island is .003 for taking and -.002 for adding. It's on the island.com web site.
I think your a little jealous since you can't compete. I'm not an owner and trade at the .0035. I'm just a low volume retail trader (about 45K per day). I think in the next few years commissions will fall even more. The ecn costs? I trade listed so hitting and ecn is not even an issue. ISLD website has the same rate so how can it be market up?
Is the adding the same for listed? I was under the impression it wasn't. Besides I would rather have them keep the 80 cents from adding liquidity and give me a cheaper rate over all. Most traders would agree since the real traders take control of the trade, not letting the trade take control of them. Obviously you know this. Today on 43K shares hit INCA 2 times for a total of 2500 shares. Look at the money I saved with a lower base.
Who are you kidding???? If your self clearing and set it up right your cost to clear is less than $1 per 1000. I helped a different firm set up branch and the clearing agreement was for .75 per 1000 shares. Slim margins!!! Look at the mark up on a % basis. So lets look at your firm. How much do you charge your traders trading 20K to 30K per day?
This is a talk between a def and a blind. It all depends on what side you are. If you are a tenant you want a lower rent and if you are a landlord you want a higher rent. They are both right but will never agree. Wow am I smart ?
Man. I don't know where to start first Ticker. You just gave me a pile of sh_t and my shovel's too small. From TickerWatcher: "I trade listed so hitting an ECN is not even an issue. " > First of all, what idiotic firm is giving you .003 for listed trades on 45,000 shares a month. This is pure malarkey. Second, in 6-12 months ECNs will take a considerable amount of listed market share. If you think ECNs are irrelevant for listed trading you deserve to be bent over by every specialist on the floor. "ISLD website has the same rate so how can it be market up?" > The ISLD website I go to quotes .003/-.002. Not sure which ISLD website you're going to. "I think your a little jealous since you can't compete. I'm not an owner and trade at the .0035. I'm just a low volume retail trader (about 45K per day)." > I've traded for a firm that charged over a penny per share and it was worth every cent. Why? Because they gave me something I couldn't get anyplace else: TRULY value-added training, automated sofware, and more buying power than I could ever ask for. Firms with a competitive advantage don't need to compete on price. Mind you, firms with nothing to offer but low rates would disagree. "Today on 43K shares I hit INCA 2 times for a total of 2500 shares. Look at the money I saved with a lower base." Most of the best traders buy the bid and sell the offer. Thus, it makes sense to not only get a decent base rate, but to also get PAID for adding liquidity. "Slim margins!!! Look at the mark up on a % basis. " I can tell from this statement alone that you are completely obtuse about this business. Percentage markup means NOTHING when you're talking a 2/10-3/10 cent markup. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to run a BD?? Nevermind, I know the answer to that. "If your self clearing and set it up right your cost to clear is less than $1 per 1000." You still have to pay for execution. You trade listed right? You aren't going to execute and clear NYSE trades for anything close to 1/10 cent. Then you have to pay rent, compliance, SRO fees, legal fees, marketing, insurance, utilities, data fees, licensing fees, exchange fees, accounting fees, and most importantly technology expenses. You're going to pay for all this with a 1/10-2/10 cent markup??? Pinch yourself. You're dreaming. The Nutshell: Get your facts in order and spare us your incessant low-commission drivel.
% doesn't pay the bills. And in order to get the costs that low you would need a hell of alot of shares. And the more traders you get the higher your costs are for employees to maintain all those traders, to do record keeping, bandwidth, servers, computers, software, rent, and other things. There isn't just one cost in running this business. Think about it, if I run a firm and my total costs are 250,000 a month, I would need over 300,000,000 sahres a month to get clearing costs to that level. The .75/1000 was part of the clearing cost not the whole thing. It's the same debate we had the other day, if your buddy was giving out those rates to everyone, he would own this business.