Does anyone know how much institutional traders pay for commisions, fees, etc.? I want to get an idea how big of an advantage there they have over us retail guys.
If anything many of them pay more (per share) than you do, but get in return various services and better access to information flow.
They dont pay per trade, they pay per share. Of course , if you were a hedge fund or insurance co wanted to buy 100k shares at the market, I guess you could use an Etrade account to do it. Maybe some of them do, some of the time.
Depends. Are you a member of the exchange? Size traded monthly? Broker doing some of your marketing? Internal Fund? etc. etc.