Quote from hedgeking:
don your info is incorrect. you say rates bottomed a few years ago thats totally false. rates have been coming down for years. your rates might have bottomed years ago but assent,hold and others are much cheaper than you. i know a manager at assent that gets basically unlimited margin for his series 7 guys and is big sub .002. you say your rates are all in but thats not really accurate either. if you give me your lowest rate .004 and i bang the bid and ask all day long on nasdaq and you net out overides of .001 you won't allow that for long. your all in is with nyse which only has a .00025 fee per share. again if i bang arca bids and asks all day at .004 all in you won't like that either paying the .003 ecn fee for me. ALSO LOOK NO FURTHER THAN BAC OFFERING ZERO COMMISSIONS FOR 30 TRADES A MONTH TO KNOW THAT FEES NEVER BOTTOMED YEARS AGO. and as far as i know assent has over 1000 traders 28 offices and is owned by huge sunguard so you can't call them a cheapee firm. don for a year now you've constantly argued that firms like echo,hold and others are not lower than your best rates of .004 but thats simply false . go look at the p@ l board and many guys with hold are near .002 and they're just traders so there mangers are sub .002. some big guys with genesis are even sub .001. now you clear threw gs so your clearing cost alone are probably .0015 or so(the reason i say this is i saw an article when etg was bought by shoney and they said clearing threw gs for etg was around .0015 cent a share) not trying to argue just setting the facts straight
As my friends at other firms say "show me those sub .002 rates" LOL, with virtually "unlimited buying power" (if only...sign me up, and, yes,
I PAY MORE THAN THAT, PERIOD ...sorry to burst that bubble. When we considered buying ETG, my friend, Jeff Mester (President of ETG) and I spent a lot of time together, and I know exactly what all their people paid (I wish I could charge those rates, seriously). Is "clearing" the only cost involved, I wish.
And, (not trying to be a brat here, but...)..... would you like to make a little wager here about my friends at Assent (whom I think is much better since they changed management, BTW)... for every person over 1,000 that they have, I will pay you $1,000 (licensed Assent trader), if you will pay me half, yes only $500 for every number less than 1,000. If you would consider it, we'll chat. I don't really expect you to get involved in such a one sided bet, you're too smart, that's why I question your statements in this post.
I will compare apples to apples with anyone, at any time...consider the trader's needs, consider the trader's bottom line.
Look, competition is fine, even applauded...but I have to deal with reality every day...I know our costs, I know what our traders pay, and I know what the industry average is....it's my job, it's my business, and it's my passion.
Consider: Buying Power (reality, overnight), Writing to API, short stock interest, short stock availability, access to your capital on a weekly basis (and, yes getting paid overnight), training from experts with continuing access to other avenues of earnings, security and regulatory issues, etc., etc.
As far as BAC goes, I have been saying for years that retail firms don't need to charge any commissions at all..they don't pay interest on short stock money (check Investopedia)...and I am thrilled that millions of more "traders" will be making more trades so that we can make more money...sounds harsh, but if you bring more amateurs into a profession game, it has to be good for us.
OK, well it's been a while, but this is always fun ...
Don
