The improvement of commissions over time

General discussions about futures.
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Trading Leech
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The improvement of commissions over time

Post by Trading Leech »

Alexander Elder writes in his 1993 book "Trading for a Living":

"You can expected to pay a ... commission of anywhere from $12 to $100 for every futures contract you trade. Big traders ... pay less; small traders ... pay more. ... For example, you may pay $30 to trade a single contract of corn ..."

Looking at Interactive Brokers' site today, their commission for trading one futures contract is $0.85.

Have commissions really have improved so much during this time, or am I missing something?
Moto moto
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Post by Moto moto »

another way to look at it might be that floor traders always had the lowest commission's as they had direct market access. Now days anyone with a computer and a discount DMA broker (eg; IB) is effectively a floor trader.
Comparing the two costs on that basis between then and now might be very interesting.

the first time I paid a retail client rate I fell over - how can you charge $8 for something I used to pay $1 for and you are offering nothing as I also pay for your platform - these guys down the road only want $5 - so they matched it. :)
trackstar
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Re: The improvement of commissions over time

Post by trackstar »

Trading Leech wrote:Alexander Elder writes in his 1993 book "Trading for a Living":

"You can expected to pay a ... commission of anywhere from $12 to $100 for every futures contract you trade. Big traders ... pay less; small traders ... pay more. ... For example, you may pay $30 to trade a single contract of corn ..."

Looking at Interactive Brokers' site today, their commission for trading one futures contract is $0.85.

Have commissions really have improved so much during this time, or am I missing something?
trading/investing with a CTA/IB can sometimes expose a client to those high contract fees still....
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