they´re playing monopoly. severaö other european exchanges use the xetra plattform (like suisse virtx) and they´re makin big $$$ with it.
just to give you a small look behind the scenes:
the deutsche börse introduced the central counterparty (ccp) some months ago, which means that if you make a trade, you dont settle with your counterpart directly(deutsche bank bought 1000 shares from dresdner bank for example - that was was the way before the change) but everybody has to settle their trades with the ccp (you buy 1000 shares from the ccp).
before the change, there were rumors for about 1-2 years about how it will be introduced and what advantages it will bring. everybody was looking for a reduction in price because even back then the deutsche börse was way expensive.
but guess what, when it was introduced there was an increase in prices!
you can see them in my first post in this thread; what i forgot is the ccp-fee, which is an additional â¬0,51 per counterparty on a trade. now you might wonder how many counterparties do you have per trade? that differs from time to time. if you´re lucky you have only one, if you´re not so lucky, you have 25 on a 1000 shares trade.
i cannot understand why nobody is sueing the deutsche börse for abusing their monopol. europeans are reuglating about every market, but nobody cares about this bs. for my broker the ccp fee means an increase of costs in the mid 5 digits.
if you´re looking for a broker for the german market, you gotta be careful, because every brokerage house handles the exchange-fees a bit different: with some the xetra fees are a pass - through fee, with some not etc...
kev
