For once i have to agree with threadstarter, i mean areyoukidding. I can't say I know anyone who trades full-time that has paid a penny a share in 2 maybe even 1/2 years. I know guys that are making 250-500K a year but if they had to pay a penny a share, they would be LOSING money. I'm dead serious.
lmao any serious full time stock trader paying apenny a share needs his head examined. as a poster said you'd be amazed what the companies pay to clear and expenses etc. there's huge trading houses paying 1/10th of apenny under somebody. a huge broker dealer doing 150 mil amon th can go directly to a clearing firm and anything over .00005 is profit. many huge broker dealers get batch clearing which means all the same stock in agroup is batch cleared for one price. sure some low cost brokers are crap but there's some good one's too. i laugh at all these people trying to make excuses for chargin .007 to a penny a share. thats crap. if someone does 100k vol a day thats $1000 a day. if a trader does 100k and adds alot of liquidity his base commissions of .003 could be .002 easy and he's now paying $200 a day which is a savings of $16000 amonth or $196k a year. the diffference between a good living and a lose for the year. its huge and don';t let anyone tell you different. if i pay .003 at echo does that mean its bad, echo has great service
What you pay, and whether or not its a good deal is highly subjective, it's not black and white like some would lead you to believe. Technology is an edge and surely worth paying for, extra services are valuable and worth paying for, having tremendous buying power is a huge edge, more than any other. And that is worth paying for. Being at a solid firm is worth paying for. The ability to hold positions is another tremendous edge, and worth paying for. It's not all about getting the lowest rate folks, and I make, have made, and continue to make a tremendous amount of money trading. Good trading! Mike
I'm not going to get into a pissing match, though I do want to point out something. Why stop there, prices are so low!! Lets all shop at the 99cents store for our quality goods. We need to take that proverbial 196K in yearly savings and put that torwards a mortgage on an exchange seat. Anything less is getting SERIOUSLY ripped off. .003 why not .00003, no free. I think this thought proccess lay deep in the minds of traders. The truth being a modus operandi of self preservation rooted from an inate desire to see your fellow man/woman fail. People should be truly educated and know there is differences in execution and the concept of pay for orderflow and how trades are routed, and who really gets that good fill to get in. Even more important is when its time to get out. Even more important is know the first name of the guy getting you out if you can't. A working relationship is key. Every elment of success in anything, points to leveraging your assets. Whereas a trader can trade remote, there is a big difference in trading remote, and trading alone. I think perhaps its this self preserving, ego driven gambit of greed. (The less they know the more for me) that pushes others to advise their brethern to attempt trading with out all the proper tools, knowledge, and backoffice resources. They point to the cheapest broker and say if you only pay X you will become successful. I'm not going to point out the fallacy and distortion of a persons mental framework in pushing them in this direction. They will ultimatly fail and then blame their in ability to get that extra .0005 as their comfort crutch. I don't blame you though. Why help someone shorten their learning curve less than your own, but I think your true feelings on the matter were well communicated in this thread. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...7536&highlight=joeyata1+commission#post757536 Best, -ChaosNSX
First, your implication that there is something necessary to resist having the last word makes no sense. Seems to me the time to stop speaking is when you have nothing to say, not for an arbitrary reason. I have no direct knowledge of why ETG's office is doing well (Thriving?!) and Bright's closed. I suspect that it is the same reason every other office either succeeds or fails, leadership. Cheu never could lead an office, the person who was in charge recently really did not have the desire while the head of ETG Atlanta's branch is a leader by example type. I do not think that available supply of traders has anything to do with the success of an office. I have no axe against Bright; in fact I think highly of his success. He and his brother have combined to have management at their firm that combines, trading expertise with marketing genius. As for ETG, I started there many years ago (1995) in the Chicago office where coincidentally the current manager of Atlanta was then trading as well as Jeff who was the office manager there and trained me to trade before he rose up to CEO. I left ETG at least 4 years ago (I am a direct customer of SLK/GSEC with a small hedge fund) and have no interest in promoting them. Jeff is gone and Sloan was just another guy in the office when we were together in Chicago. (I actually thought he was a little standoffish) As I see it, if the company has been sold which is what this thread is all about then no one has any interest in promoting them.
I respectfully disagree. I was just paying .007 with tremendo leverage and was doing ok, not great. now im at .003 and am loving it. to each his own i suppose.
on the same note i bet you have a good rate right? you also have a group so its not really fare for you to judge. i think if you make money charging higher rates of course you will defend them. i dont think mikes a bad guy at all though.
it is much easier to bring in traders with no capital and fling crap on the wall and see what sticks than to have someone new bring in their own capital. the question is, how successful are these newbies??? are they turning over 20 traders to keep 3??? just because the seats are filled doesn't mean they are thriving. rumor has it they are a churn mill.
One of my good friends is one of the top 5 commodity traders in the United States, and is on par with John Henry (CTA rankings, autumn gold) and although his results are verfied by a top accounting firm, Trader Monthly never mentions him in their top traders. His returns and earnings dwarf those most of the guys I have read about in their mag, and Trader Monthly cannot verify any of the earnings of the traders they mention. I think its a good mag if you are into that sort of hype, but just because a prop firm isn't mentioned in the pages, doesn't mean you should take it as the Bible, so to speak. This magazine has a certain focus and aim, and its not necessarily always factual. So because ETG wasn't mentioned, doesn't mean it wasn't a successful firm with successful traders.
I have a fair rate, not the best, not the worst either. Like I said, you have to factor in everything to make a good decision. Technology, automation, BP, Pay out, Firm reliability, How the firm manages risk, services, etc. All of these factors are just as important, if not more important than your clearing rate, IMO. And by far the greatest trump card is to have an edge. If you don't have that, even trading for free will put you out of the game. Good trading to all! Mike