I would hazard to guess my grandmother makes more trades in 1 month then you do in a year pal! No big deal you say... try this on for size; most days myself and the guys in my group average between $250-300 per trader in SEC fees, some days a guy will do $500! You do the math, it will cost us on average $5G's a month. But by the sounds of things that wouldn't impact you.... you talk like you make $5G's per trade. I ask again, what on God's earth do these jack-asses need another $5G's a month out of my pocket for. I guess all that extra money that the SEC collects but doesn't see in its budget will probably be given to George and his band of bumbling idiots who will need it to bring all his toys home since they can't find a parking spot across the pond. MACD
When trading volume picked up, they actually lowered the sec fees, so dont forget that we did get a break. not that the volume has been decreasing, they need to cover their own costs. I dont like it, but i didnt complain when they were lowered. I guess i didint take into account that there were traders paying $500 worth of sec fees. thats sure alot in one day. But you know whats even more funny? Everyone is talking about what a big deal this sec increase is, but here you have traders at a firm that are paying say .01, when you can goto a firm that pays .007. So why are these traders still at a firm that charges .01? now to me, .003 and a mere 50,000 shares a day, a month you would save $3,000 and 36,000 a year. the savings are even more drastic if you traded say 3 million a month. this is something that you can control, but everyone is paying the same sec fees.
Anacott, No one complained when the SEC fees were decreased, of course not! That's common sense, I don't complain when no one breaks into my house and rips me off either but of course I'm going to complain when they do. Besides, the decrease was short lived and as I have said before it was really only because of an embarrassment of riches that they did so. As far as people paying ridiculous commissions, beats the hell out of me why anyone would choose to do that. The key however is that it is their choice, the SEC fee however is not a choice. It is forced on us like it or not! If someone wants to pay commissions that I would insanely high I can't stop em'. But I obviously get pissed when something is jammed down my throat by some useless gov't agency and directly impacts on my livelihood and I can't opt out of. MACD
Why would you pay .007 if your doing 3 mil shares per month. You are right.... its not the SEC that's taking your money.... its your firm !!!!!! Banker
Banker, I was just using .007 as an example, and you are right, who would pay that if they were doing 3 million shares a month. Thats one of the reasons why I goto expos in NYC. Its much easier when its in my backyard. I try to talk to about every BD that is present to see their latest technology and rates. as for MACD, I do hear you . I do know that they have lowered the fees due to the fact they they very profitable. It seems that after 911 and all these problems with regulations, they had no choice but to hire more people and give pay raises. I guess we are the ones picking up the tab. perhaps we should get rebates personally from the sec if they have profits!! =) We just have to live with it and make an extra few traders to make up for it. hopefully, its just one good trade.
Here's a repost of Metooxx regarding the SEC's investigation into suspicious options trades around 9/11: "They actually called on a handful of test 1 lots that half of them were on the wrong side, all of them we were flat on and most of them we made $5 or $10 dollars on. They even were kind enough to read me my rights. When I quit laughing at their ineptitude; I called back and offered our data mining capabilities to them. They declined the offer and politely informed me that they were the experts in that field. I could tell ..." http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13042&perpage=6&pagenumber=2
As I understand it, the SEC gets funded by the Gov't, which last I knew, genrl GB wouldn't sign the funding req under Sarbains-Oxley bec. the repubs wanted to gut the bill ASAP. So since each and every dollar of the increase will go to the govt general fund, WHO is asking for the increase? The SEC isn't going to get any more $$, AND, if the problem is the lack of volume then WHY weren't the fees lowered during the bubble when the volume was so huge. Further, today's volume is only light compared to the recent few years, pre-bubble, the volume was much less. This is a total screw-job, now who sits on the board for the people again?
If anyone already posted this, sorry for the repeat. I didn't see it in any of the postings. I'm estimating that the SEC fees will cost the average trader about 1/10 of a cent per share (actually 1/20, since it's only on the sell side.) The increase itself will cost the average trader less than half of that, since we were already paying $25.20 per million dollars. So the increase means you're paying 1/40 of a cent per share more than you were. (If you include buying and selling, and if the average stock you trade is $20) Assuming that an average stock is $20, that goes into $1 million 50,000 times. $46.80/50,000 = roughly 1/10 of a penny. Did I do that right? It's only charged on the sell side, right? Is $20 a reasonable price per share for an average stock? Too high/low? It does add up if you trade volume, though.
you did the math right. Unfortunately, a lot of us don't trade stocks under $40....for me the added cost is about .0005 or roughly 1K+ /month. Not the right way to deal with lower volume.....they should be giving us more incentive to trade, not punish the DT that are still around.