A trade is going long or short. A broker charges you when this trade is made. When you go long, you get charged. When you close that position you offset your position by going short and you get charged again. Together these 2 fees make up your RT rate. But saying that the broker only charges you 1 time, the RT fee is false. If that would be the case the broker would only charge you when the trade was closed, and they don't, they charge you when you place a trade, not when you close a trade.
Standard costs and fees for retail come to $4-$5 per RT - ie the 0.1 point figure I cited earlier. If you're paying "a couple of ticks" in commission you're getting ripped off bigtime.
Someone that has never owned a business...will most likely see their broker commission/fees as their only cost to trade. In contrast, someone that has owned a business...will most likely see that there are other fees involved with trading that has nothing to do with their broker. You can then determine the true cost per trade or contract to then determine how many ticks you really need to make to be truly breakeven or profitable on a trade. If someone doesn't understand...they should have a discussion with a tax accountant at the minimum. Treat your trading like a business and you'll be ahead of most of your competition (those on the other side of your trades).
I only pay 1 r/t commission covers the buy & sell you are are getting overcharged with those 2 charges
No you are not, if you look closely you will see you get charged per side. I pay $1.60 all fees included per side for an ES E-MINI trade That is $3.20 all in. (commissions, clearing, exchange fees, NFA fee)
Lets pretend your round-trip fee is $2.20 rt per contract. Now lets pretend you went Long one contract in Emini ES futures today @ 1005am est and you decide to swing trade it for a few days (your broker does not know when you plan to exit the Long position)... How much are you charged today (as in what will the fee show up as on tonight nightly broker fee statement) ? Will your broker commission/fee cost today be $2.20 roundtrip or will your cost today only be $1.10 per side for purchasing one contract of Emini ES futures via this hypothetical broker commission/fee example that will show up on your tonight broker statement.
You pay every time you make a trade. Opening and closing a position is two trades. You are not charged a r/t commission when you open a trade. This should be basic information, but I guess I'm wrong. People talk about r/t commissions because it is easier than taking the one side fee and multiplying by 2.
Agree and many new traders don't know there's a difference between per side versus roundtrip cost and/or they don't read their broker daily fee statements nor the fee info at the broker website. I've never heard of a futures broker charging the total roundtrip upon entry in a trade and then not charge a cost upon exiting a trade or charging the 0 dollars to enter a trade and then charging the total roundtrip upon closing the trade position...whenever the position is closed (today, next week, next month or day of expiration). Maybe a futures broker outside of North America may do such ??? In contrast, its common knowledge that you get charge 1/2 (called per side) of the roundtrip upon entry and then charged a second 1/2 that represent the other per side to equal one roundtrip upon exiting the trade...per contract. I've only seen new traders that don't read their broker fee structure at the broker website along with not reading their nightly broker trade statement make such a mistake in not knowing they are paying a ONCE per side to enter a trade and then paying again ONCE per side to exit a trade to equal a total of one roundtrip. 1 per side (open a trade) + 1 per side (close a trade) = 1 roundtrip Simply, the broker has charged you twice (once per side) = 1 roundtrip
Funny thread. tenthousandmen, instead of asking a cryptic question like what do you need to break even (leading to meta-discussions about costs other than commissions, like utilities, etc) why didn't you just ask what people are paying in commissions and you can do the math yourself 1 tick ES = $12.50, Both futures brokers I use, IB and MBT both charge much less than that round trip (MBT = $2.11 per side, IB = $2.01) I don't have futures enabled on my TDAmeritrade account but according to the web site is $3.50 per side. Thus 1 tick more than covers the cost of the trade in terms of commissions for those brokers. So OP if 1 tick doesn't cover your commissions then you need to find another broker! hitnrun why don't you just name this broker that charges you 1 commission round-trip so we can put that argument to bed?
in the old days, you only paid the commission when you got flat. You were charged by RT. That's how brokers advertised it. Now you'll see advertised per contract. IB was the first broker I ever traded with that charged per contract by the side. maybe his firm does it the old way