Commission cost as % of profits

parttimetrader · Apr 16, 2004

I'm currently averaging around 10 round trip trades a day on the ES & the cost of this per month is around 10% of my profits. I'm with IB who are competitive with commission rates.

Are there any brokers who would offer lower commission rates for the amount of volume i'm trading? Or is this kind of % common and i'll just have to put up with it?

Grob109 · Apr 16, 2004

I am at over 20 times that and % is much less.

parttimetrader · Apr 16, 2004

Quote from Grob109:

I am at over 20 times that and % is much less.

Are you paying less that $4.80 for round trip?

nitro · Apr 16, 2004

There are adds starring you in the face all over ET that give rates that are much lower than that.

nitro

parttimetrader · Apr 16, 2004

Quote from nitro:

There are adds starring you in the face all over ET that give rates that are much lower than that.

nitro

Yes i've seen them but i've been hesitant to change as often cheaper isn't always better. Also i use API based trades and IB seems stable in my experience. I'll look into the other firms. Thanks.

nitro · Apr 16, 2004

Quote from parttimetrader:

Yes i've seen them but i've been hesitant to change as often cheaper isn't always better. Also i use API based trades and IB seems stable in my experience. I'll look into the other firms. Thanks.

If API is an issue, that considerably complicates things. Most of the Introducing Brokers (all ?) that advertise on ET do not have an API.

I hear that both FFast and Velocity are working on one, but no ETA as far as I know.

nitro

dnaj65000 · Apr 16, 2004

not too shabby being at 10%

when i was trading equities for a well known prop firm, my commiss and trading costs were 133% of gross profits.

The house always wins in the end.

parttimetrader · Apr 16, 2004

Quote from dnaj65000:

not too shabby being at 10%

when i was trading equities for a well known prop firm, my commission and trading costs were 133% of gross profits.

The house always wins in the end.

Ouch.

I'm currently just trading 1 ES contract (mini ) and i'm making
on average 5 points a day from 10 round trips. So that's;

$250/day - $48 ( commission ) - $60 ( tax @ 30% ) = $142

Then there's data/software fees which aren't a lot in the big picture but still take some more $'s from my profit.

I guess i need to make more points per round trip to improve the situation. Moving to a slightly cheaper broker would also help.

Tough way to make a living for sure!