Don, I would agree with you on this one. If you are a "Professional Series 7 Licensed Trader", trading firm capital at a professional firm-Bright,LWS,ECHO,Genaric etc. , then you must pay professional exchange fees. I don't like professional fees, but these are the rules and we pay them , or if the L.L.C. member chooses to trade at a remote location and pay for their own quotes , he/she is subject to professional exchange fees . Gene Weissman Lieber & Weissman Sec., L.L.C. gweissman@stocktrade.net
Can anyone answer how much these professional fees are per month, and do they apply to NYSE trading and/or to NASDAQ trading?
Fees are on a sliding scale depending on the # of users the firm has. Professional exchange fees apply to NYSE/AMEX/NASDAQ. If you pay $200 per month for quotes and you get NASDAQ/AMEX/NYSE/OPRA/CME/CBOT etc., your exchange fees will add up to approx. the same amount as your quotes, so the total cost for fees would be approx. $200. Over 50% of the exchange's income is quote fees. The exchange fees are the reason Bright , LWS ,ECHO and other firms may charge a minimum "seat fee" or have volume requirements for their L.L.C. members to use their trading software. Gene Weissman Lieber & Weissman Sec., L.L.C. gweissman@stocktrade.net
Gene is right, the exchange fees are the core expense involved in setting up a desk. We can negotiate data feeds based on volume etc., but every single data feed pays an exchange fee. It's just a cost of doing business. Not worth losing your license/franchise over.
It has come to my attention that one of the other (newer) firms has been holding traders money (traders who have come to Bright) for no apparent reason. I thought I would clarify the rules in this regard. The Chicago Stock Exchange has a rule about new LLC members leaving their money in their trading firm for 12 months, the Pacific Stock Exchange does not have this rule, and the Philadelphia does not have this rule. Our firm is able to return money to traders even if they choose to leave in a month after joining because we have no need to use their capital to maintain our "net capital requirements." My point is that I don't want any potential traders to think that we engage in this "holding" practice, because we have been pointed at regarding this. We comply with all the exchange rules but are able to release funds to our traders whenever they want it. So please everyone, check the facts about your firm's policies and don't let them point to us in error. Thanks again....(and give them their money back!)
Along the line of duplicate exchange fees: If one is a member of a professional firm, thereby already paying pro fees through the firm, but has a backup retail quote source which also charges pro fees is there any allowance made by the exchanges in order that pro fees are not charged twice?
I don't see any reason for additional exchange fees, since you wouldn't need to use another quote service anyway. Our trader who want quotes at home are simply authorized to do so.
If we pay the excnage fees directly to the prop firm and suppose we have a subscription to qchart, do we need to pay excnage fees to qchart also??? Thanks for the answer
Don, It is of no use to anyone in the process of deciding which firm to trade with if you keep the names of the firms you refer to in previous post on this thread to yourself. Please name the suspected firms. Thanks
I really think it is better for the traders to ask the hard questions of whatever firm they are contemplating getting involved with. Ask for compliance issues, balance sheets, review the trader forms in their office so you can ask specifics. I am just trying to help the industry avoid another debacle like 1998's attack by the Senate, which ended up putting hundreds of traders out in the cold.