Brokerages and Average Cost Per Trade?

[candlestixs 10]

What brokerage is popular with scalp traders? The average cost per trade seems crucial in this method of trading and if the trade is costing is $10-20 round trip I'm guessing the position sizes must be somewhat large to pickup a profit in micro movements in the market.

[jackj 10]

First off, what market(s) are you asking about? The lowest commissions are in futures. Referencing $10-$20 per trade sounds like you're either talking stocks or maybe the spread in spot forex? If you do futures, your r/t cost should be around $4. If you're doing spot forex, especially for scalping, I'd recommend you do currency futures - saving and waiting if you have to - and trade small for proper money management rather than be subject to the whims and spreads of spot forex simply because it has a low cost to entry.

 

If stocks, Interactive Brokers is likely (to my knowledge) the cheapest.

 

Oh yeah... And if you do futures, and scalp many times a day (around 25 r/t per day and above), you'd save more money leasing an exchange seat.

[4EverMaAT 10]

losses would also be large if the market moves against you.

 

Are you referring to futures or forex. Typically in forex, the major brokers you will see about $3-5 per round turn trade for a standard lot (100,000 of base currency) which every pip move is approximately +/- $ € £ 10.00 . Oh yeah, there is a spread also between 0.8 and 3.5 pips for the majors and cross pairs.

 

Futures the spread is usually 0-1 tick + commission which for a discount broker is $4-5 round turn with all the fees.

 

edit: Jack beat me to it, lol. But looks like I was right on the spot with my answer, and it's been years since I traded futures.

[JackWell 10]

What brokerage is popular with scalp traders? The average cost per trade seems crucial in this method of trading and if the trade is costing is $10-20 round trip I'm guessing the position sizes must be somewhat large to pickup a profit in micro movements in the market.

 

No doubt that if you want to make scalping you need a good strategy first, and a dissent broker that welcomes scalpers. The problem is that many brokers tells you that they don't have problems with scalping but when you try trading with them you see that they put obstacles against you. So what you should do is to check the broker's demo account before you deposit money. Likewise, talk with a representative and make sure that they don't have problem with that. From my experienced in scalping I would recommend on Sunbirdfx or alpari uk low spreads, they welcome any type of traders including scalpers, and the most important thing: very low slippage, which is crucial for scalpers.

[Predictor 11]

For futures trading there are many brokers offering competitive rates and the following are worth considering OEC, Velocity Trading, OptimusTrading (not sure what their rates are), DeepDiscountTrading, Tradestation, AmpFutures (not sure), and InfinityFutures. Not a recommendation.

 

For stocks, InteractiveBrokers and MBTrading offer competitive rates.

 

What brokerage is popular with scalp traders? The average cost per trade seems crucial in this method of trading and if the trade is costing is $10-20 round trip I'm guessing the position sizes must be somewhat large to pickup a profit in micro movements in the market.