As a swing trader over the past year I've paid 9.5% of my starting account value in commissions and almost 25% of my profits. That is higher than the prior couple years due to lower profits.
Trading fees are covered up. They are factored in when calculating the basis, revenues, and IRS-recognized gains & losses. If you're whining about trading fees, either your fee per trade is too high or your trading style is inadequate. I recently transferred my funds out of TD Ameritrade and into Scottrade. TD Ameritrade use to be my 2nd cheapest broker. Now it is my most expensive, so I bailed out on them. I pay a lot in trading fees, but because I'm succeeding in my trading, I'm happy to spread the wealth.
Wow, Optionsxpress charges $5.99 per ES trade and then $1.17 for 'exchange and clearing fees' and then $.50 for Transaction fees. Costs me $7.65 per trade. So expensive, is there a way I can get my fees to come down without having to change brokers again?
I am in the process of moving some accounts - I hate it but controlling costs is important. I accept it as part of doing business. I am not happy to share the wealth, I do it grudgingly. I moved from Scottrade to Zecco back when they used to have free trades - no commissions at all, and still I was getting good fills on limit orders. That was a sweet deal. Then they added commissions and kept increasing them. I've been doing most of my trading at IB but kept my Zecco accounts for the fixed commissions, now moving one to IB and another to Fidelity. Fidelity is not cheapest but I have other funds there and I'm tired of moving accounts. I tried Sogotrade for a while but the fills and borrows were poor. I took my money out before they closed down.
OEC's default commissions are under $5 per round trip. If you trade a lot and call them you can possibly negotiate lower fees. A year or so ago they were offering free commissions for new clients (well, no clearing fee or something, it ended up being around $3 per round trip). On the ES that's less than 1 tick per round trip. If commissions are your problem in that case, you are not a good trader.