I'm interested to know what are commissions cost like on daily trading basis for full time traders out there. For past two months, I have been trading with IB with 100k account. I spend around $400-$600 on average daily. I trade stocks only. Do IB offer better commissions for high volume traders? Are there any other brokers have cheaper commissions (for stocks) and have same or better execution speed than IB? Who you guys trade with and what's the commissions cost like?
I have to admit that your volume and daily commission payment have made mine look miniscule. But as far as I know, IB doesn't care. You already have cheap service in their minds. In fact, they apparently are not happy about it at all. So they added new rules and fees to make you trade less. You should trade lower volume or find another broker. I know there will be plenty good deals for you. But for me I have to drop my monthly volume/commission significantly to cope with the change.
minimi, what are you talking about? for size trades, fees are 1/2 penny per share. SEC and exchange (ecn) fees are included. Thus for 2000 shares, the all inclusive fee is .00625 per share. I don't know of many firms that can offer this rate, range of services and financial security for active traders. If you are are talking about the additional option cancel fees you should understand that the option exchanges are charging $1 per modification. Given that IB charges only $1 per contract (again all inclusive), I think it is understandable that IB needs to pass on these costs.
$1000 commissions in a day is about as high as it gets for me... and that's only on a really busy day... on average I am paying around $500 which covers all intraday trading of stocks and futures... commissions are an evil, but a necessary evil, cos I aint yet found a free broker...
I trade $2,000-3,000 in commissionsper day at IB ....no other place is cheaper for direct access size. It's the best $2000-3000/day I could possibly spend considering the great service I get.
I've never traded with IB so I can't comment on them. I have traded for 7 years and am currently with MB Trading. Their rates are low now but they're cutting them a bit more next week per the link below. http://www.mbtrading.com/newrates.asp
Anybody has any experience with Velocity? - http://www.velocityfutures.com/commisions_schedule.html - even cheaper than ffastrade for big volumes. pretzel
You weren't kidding when you said "big volumes"... Velocity is cheaper than FFastFill for e-minis if you trade more than 15k contracts per month. That is BIG volume! Actually, at that volume, you could probably further lower your cost per round trip by leasing a CME membership and paying lower fees. Thanks for the link, pretzel.