Alright Babak,. lets clear some things up here....
Yeah you're right, Ive never heard of something called 'remote trading' .......... considering I did it for some time.
No I didnt know about Bright, but then again, they are not in toronto and have only 1 Cdn branch.
The 1 cent commissions/share commissions would just not work out well to the style many of ST traders....lets have a math lesson....
ST Trader trading (per day)
600,000 shares (low) = $6,000 at one cent/share
1,000,000 shares (average) = $10,000 at one cent/share
2,000,000 + shares (high) = $20,000+ at one cent/share
Now let me give you an idea of passthroughs at ST....
Normally, traders that trade for gross pay about 10-20% of their gross in passthrough fees.
ST Trader grossing (per day at 15%)
$1,500 (low) pays $225 netting $1,275
$3,000 (average) pays $550 netting $2,450
$4,500 (high) pays $675 netting $3,825
This high figure is conservative as grosses reach over 7 or 8 k rather often for some traders. Many traders will also earn a couple grand gross per day, and have a grand or two in negative passthroughs (liquidity credits) to reach similar (or higher) net numbers.
30% of the numbers just above is:
low $382.50
average $735
high $1,147.50
Now, in order to net this highest amount with a one cent commission based on ST volumes (which also allows for sometimes massive negative passthroughs) the trader must gross $13,825 (at 1 million shares), or even more - $23,825 (at 2 million shares) since a high gross number at ST usually requires this sort of volume.
So now you can see why the one cent a share thing is just unbelievable to ST traders, SO expensive. ST traders get very pissed when they accidentally hit ATTN and pay retail since it costs $9/1000 shares for ST. This is less than one cent a share, and it seems astronomically expensive.
To gross $20,000+ at any firm day trading would require a phenomenal amount of buying power and capital tied up. Aimagine losing 10k in a day. Ouch.