What is the best way to reduce the commission costs

[pairsarb]

Quote from Mike805:

If you use ECNs and MMs correctly, you can knock off .0022 to .0027 from your per share rate.

Not passing thru rebates is a big downside to IB. Everyone should be able to negotiate pass thru ECN rebates with their broker.

I'll give you my stats:

I am retail and pay .004 +/- ECN rebates (Avg .002 Rebate) so I avg .002 - .0025 overall.

Say you trade about 300k shares per month and make about 10k gross per month.

At .01 you pay 3k (30% of your gross).
At .005 you pay 1.5k (15% of your gross).
At .002 you pay 600 (6% of your gross).

It is a simple cost of doing buisness but anything over 15% is too high IMO.

Pass through ECN REBATEs are only a good thing if you ADD liquidity...if you take...you pay like .003 MORE per share....so why is an ECN rebate even worth it. If you can't add, and have to get out of a trade, you take the hit in costs. THis sounds like a totaly scam.