Most sell side prop traders pay no commission as the overhead is covered by their equity or rates trading divisions, at least I can recount more than a dozen arrangements of such nature that I am aware of. Total transaction related expenses are way lower than 0.5% round trip, including stamp, but I am happy to inquire about the current all in cost. Ex commission the exact transaction related cost per round trip in HK is 21.94 basis points or 0.2194%. And as mentioned a lot of sell side prop traders as perks have their commissions covered by the group or even whole division. So, someone who successfully trades high beta names that often move intraday more than 5% (and there are tons at decent liquidity levels) can make a pretty decent living regardless of above stated transaction fees.
I was a Sellside prop trader for a major bank for several years and we paid pur own commissions out of our pnl. If we traded with other banks this was 1 and 3. If we traded with brokers ( upstairs or floor), it was the commission plus our exchange fees and applicable stamp taxes. What was subsidized was desk fees and market data that the flow desks had already bought. We also got any volume discounts based on the overall firm volume. This was the case with all the prop traders at my bank.
We had our commissions fully subsidized and did not even have to pay borrow for any shorts. All was covered by the flow guys. Nor were we charged a penny for technology/ tech support.
We paid borrow. Support stuff like back office, tech, etc was all paid for but it also meant we didn't get a seat at the table for program enhancements. We also paid finding on everything we used. That was annoying because treasury bid offered us on the shorts and longs.
he said grossing 1% a day for stock traders which is also hogwash netting .5 would bring the account from 1M to 3.48m by the end of the year. such unobtainable results are the subject of wet dreams completely divorced from reality topped by mathematical incompetency. stevie cohen and david einhorn and carl icahn are all booked on flights to hong kong to find these gem traders..
That is derived implicitly from your post. If he makes on average just 0.5% a day then the stocks moving 5% a day should be irrelevant for all practical purposes.
Even for 1% a day it has to come from just one single daily trade for him to be profitable. That means the trader has to be 100% correct to overcome 0.5% tax.
He also wrote : "CFDs FULLY reflect stamp tax via the CFD pricing" which became a few posts later : "I never said nor say that CFDs are inferior or superior to trading the underlying cash equity, I am saying they are not equally priced. Simple as that." or "clearly the two are not identical else you would not trade the CFD in the first place." Which are quite different assertions. But we are supposed to be stupid because we had not taken into account his own backpedalling in advance. Guys, please do not be impolite and try to force Voly into making sense. Everybody needs friends. Here Voly, have a cookie.