It really depends where you are. In heavily populated areas where daytrading firms w/office locations have flourished (NY metro, Houston, Chicago) and competition is maniacal, the average ticket price is far, far lower than $18 to $25 per ticket - at least for high volume traders. In fact, I've recently seen the beginning of commissions which top off in the high, but single digits ($8, $9) for (very) high volume traders.
I agree with Eric - do not equate a place that charges a single digit - or, for that matter, three cents per share - to be "right." Base your assessment on the range of technology available, the customer service, and any number of other factors I'm sure Eric will get to eventually.
Some places also seek to give a low ticket charge, but assess a seat charge for volume under a certain number of tix per day. Like $10 bucks per tick, but if you do less than (some often absurdly high number), there's an added fee of $100-$250 per day.
One thing not to forget is that many places charge a ticket fee, and then add-ons determined by volume, exchange/ECN per share chgs, pass-through fees, etc...so even the top volume trader who hits a cheap bracket (say theoretically $8.00 for above 150 tix) will be paying, for a 1000 share order on a penny-per-share ECN, $8.00 + $10.00. With ECN's being more and more of the share of overall order routing and execution for daytraders, it really means that your average ticket is not $8.00, but probably winds up there in the $13-$15 area - when averaged in with the occasional, but increasingly rare SOES or SelectNet order.
Great thread, fellas. Happy trading,
LPS5 |
