Brokers and commissions
I want to talk today about commissions. Lets assume that you buy a straddle for $2 ($1 each option). I have an account with IB (Interactive Brokers) and pay 0.70 per contract. So for me to do a round trip trade is 2.80. This is 1.4% of the cost of the trade. So if my gain is 10%, then I keep 8.6% after commissions. If you pay $1.5 per contract, then your total cost is $6. That's 3%. You need 3% gain just to break even. Some brokers charge you per ticket fee plus per contract fee. This might b
Interesting. Robinhood just today announced that they will be offering free option trading next year.
http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2017/12/12/introducing-options-trading
-no commissions and no exercise/assignment fees (probably still passing down the other fees though, clearing, orf, etc)
-support for level 2 and level 3 option strategies (should work for the majority of SO trades)
-free real time data
They're also slowly releasing a web/desktop version o