Noticed that my SEC fees were double yesterday so we checked the website and The SEC raised the rates back to what they were. I didn't remember it being a temporary rate cut when they announced it a few months ago but I is. Nice to see rates being raised when it is allready hard to make money in this market.
But we get so much from the SEC. Without them, we would not have the brilliant Pattern Day Trading Rule to protect us from ourselves (somehow - I haven't really figured out how it does that, but I'm sure that was the idea). When Arthur Levitt went before Congress and testified that day traders were better off using brokers like Ameritrade because the commissions are lower, I lost a lot of respect for the regulatory bodies of this industry. I once experienced a surprise audit from the state regulators. They did not know what day trading was at all. They asked questions like, "uh.... what's an ECN?" Yet they had the power to close the office at a moment's notice. Scary.
Dude, I know I am just a dumb-ass day trader and all, but I visited the site and didn't find any announcement of fee changes. Is there some kind of press release or something. I wouldn't give a rat's ass about this but for the fact that I trade some pretty good volume and those SEC, s start to add up after awhile. Here' hoping that this is just a belated April Fool's joke
Go to sec.gov, type in "Fee Relief" in the search box top right corner, and it was the second thing that came up. Titled Mid year fee adjustment or such. It is on there and our whole group had twice as high SEC fees yesterday
Had a nice reply all done up with links and all and IE crashed.....Hate when that happens. Basically, every April 1st (gee, why did they pick that day?) until 2012 the fees will be adjusted to keep their budget inline. Do you think fees will go down? Regards, TAfool (trader extraordinaire!)
Thanks for the map Speedracer... I think. I have been on holidays this week and haven't traded so didn't see any increase in my trade stats. What a bunch of bull$hit! That should cost me $1500+ per month based on my trading volume. (forgive me while I vent). As I see it, the clowns at the SEC with their collective heads up their Asses managed to underestimate what it cost to pay their salaries. Salaries to pay the scribes who draft up the convoluted, unintelligible literary diarrhea that this fee increase was buried in. Instead of just issuing a press release that says: "oh by the way all you jokers out there trying to scratch out a living by trading the markets, we just increased your cost of doing business. Why you ask?..... BECAUSE WE CAN ! " So typical of government organizations that need to justify their existence. These bozos realize that if they are not bringing in obscene amounts of cake for the boss by doing absolutely jack, their ass is grass and they'll have to join the rest of the working world trying to overcome the type of crap they were responsible for creating. I am sure there will be some out there who will say that would should be thankful for the break we had for the time we had it. But honestly, what the hell do they do with that money anyways?! Use it to protect investors from debacles like Enron.... obviously not. No, they use it to hire eggheads who look at people like us (daytraders, rational thinking, risk educated entrepreneurs) and say, 'these people are drunk with ambition and they need to be protected from themselves' (see PDT rules). What a load of $hit! The fee increase should do a lot to stimulate volume in the markets, (the reason that seems to be necessitating the increase). Boy, these SEC guys really are geniuses ( and so is my dog). I knew the fee reduction was too good to last (Okay, I think I am finished venting.) MACDaddy
The pattern day trading rule is good. It sends small traders to the futures markets where they can blow up their accounts that much faster, ending the pain. So the rule is good, don't you see?