As I said earlier if you don't need to trade from the firms office and can trade from home or get your own office you can get much cheaper rates from Efficient Executions. 1 million shares a month/ 50k shares a day Lightspeed/other firm = .005 per share = $5,000 in commissions per month Efficient Executions = .0021 per share = $2,100 in commissions per month = $2,900 a month savings 1.5 million shares a month/ 75k shares a day Lightspeed/other firm = .005 per share = $7,500 in commissions per month Efficient Executions = .001733 per share = $2,600 in commissions per month = $4,900 a month savings 2 million shares a month/ 100k shares a day Lightspeed/other firm = .005 per share = $10,000 in commissions per month Efficient Executions = .00155 per share = $3,100 in commissions per month = $6,900 a month savings So either you or your friend could each be saving between $3k - $7k a month in commissions. But trading from their office maybe worth the extra money because you get good trade advice from others in the office to make up for the extra commissions, in which case the office is better for you. Or maybe you believe the same as one of the previous posters on this thread who says that the higher the commission rate you pay per share the more professional of a trader you are. Although I don't understand that logic, I think the inverse of that relationship is true. Either way Good Luck!
That's not even close to what I said. I'm not going to go into it again, but if you re-read my post I was stating all the other factors that go into being a successful trader besides the commission rate. Those cutthroat rates look great, until the market has a volume surge and your quotes are frozen and all your orders are stuck. A large trader will lose multiple amounts more due to that than he would save going with the cutthroat rate. Best of luck. Keep us posted how it works out.
I am not looking to get into an argument about it. But let me ask, what execution softaware do you use?
Oh come on, Anvil is no more reliable than Sterling, Lightspeed or Laser. In terms of execution and quote speeds all four of these softwares are on the same level. Only some have more or different bells and whistles and the graphics colors vary from one to the other. It is not worth paying higher rates for any of these softwares over the others.
Assent also charges $100/month for their VPN and Esignal is an additional $100 or so a month since Anvils charts arent the best (so they say). Calling Lightspeed back to see if they have similar fees.
in this thread there has been a comparison at times between "retail" and "prop".......can someone explain the difference to me...thx
Clubber knows what he is talking about. If you don't have > 50% margins paying $0.003/share... At a first class broker... Then it DOES NOT MATTER how low it goes... Because you do not have a viable business model. If you business model depends on sub $0.003/share rates... You may as well quit right now... Because you do not have long term viability.
So if you had the opportunity to switch to a lower rate that would save you $100k a year in commissions you wouldn't do it? Say a trader has just been breaking even for the past year, but they have the opportunity to lower their rate that would save them $100k a year in commissions. Now that trader who was just breaking even is now making 6 figures.
To put it plain and simple-- If you could save yourself 100k in commissions AND keep the same high level of service then of course it's a no brainer. What DeeDeeTwo and I are saying is that there is a floor on how low rates can go before it starts to affect the quality of service from your firm. The firm is in business to make money. At cutthroat rates, the firm simply is not able to continually upgrade their hardware and software. We've all seen what happens when there is a massive volume surge. If you can't efficiently enter/exit positions during the most active periods, you can trade for free and it still wouldn't be worth it. The lost money and missed opportunites will FAR outweigh any amount the lower rate would have saved you.