Knowing Your
Trading Costs
Learn how to effectively accommodate
for your transaction costs
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
73% and 70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with Tickmill UK Ltd and
Tickmill Europe Ltd, respectively. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work
and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1. What is the 2. The Bid-Ask 3. Spreads may 4. Why Spreads 5. Slippage causes
‘Spread’? Spread Matter Issues
Page 03 Page 04 Page 05 Page 06 Page 07 Page 08
6. Commission 7. Administrative 8. Leverage 9. The Roll 10. Summarize
Structures Costs
Page 09 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13
We appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing any thoughts or questions you have on the information included.
The Tickmill Research Team
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Introduction
One of the most important aspects of trading, that inexperienced traders often overlook, is the underlying cost of managing
and executing a trade. The amateur trader ignores business costs, choosing to only focus on the outcome of a trade. The
professional trader pays keen attention to trading costs that underpin the routine running of his or her trading business. Like
all commercial enterprises, there are fixed and floating costs.
Non-essential fees in trading may be additional money to cover bespoke technical analysis services, news wire, or squawk
services, while shorter time-frame traders may choose to pay for enhanced connections. When you place a trade, you’re subject
to some fixed costs. If you are trading through a retail FX broker, you will have to pay a commission for execution, or you will
have to pay a spread. A spread being the pip difference between the bid quote and the ask quote. As with any marketplace,
the fixed transaction costs vary from broker to broker; however, the market is very competitive. The good news for traders is
that core transaction costs are not prohibitive to running a profitable trading business.
Depending on your trading strategy, a failure to consider transaction costs may have a significant impact on your long-term
profitability. For traders choosing to execute a ‘scalping’ strategy on very short timeframes with small profit targets, a broker
with wide spreads, may make a seemingly profitable approach deliver overall negative returns.
Many traders who have back tested or demo traded a short-term scalping strategy are disappointed with the results once they
trade the strategy in live market conditions, by merely underestimating the impact of trading costs.
So, it’s essential to have an intimate understanding of all the associated fixed costs when trading. To better prepare you for
managing your trading business, we’ll breakdown all the fixed expenses of executing, controlling, and exiting a trade. Remember,
the essential aspect of managing your capital is understanding all the associated costs. For many traders, it’s not necessarily
a failure to not make a profit in the markets; it’s a failure to not account for all the costs of doing business.
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1. What is the ‘Spread’?
The simplest way for a trader to understand the spread is to understand its context as a fee your broker charges you for Ask Bid
executing your trade. When you open your trading terminal, for every currency pair, you will see prices flashing on your
screen, one named the bid, and one called the offer or ask. The spread is the difference between the two prices or the
midpoint; the broker takes the spread as payment for offering brokerage services e.g. taking your order and filling it in an
1.2900 2 pips 1.2898
available liquidity pool.
Let’s walk through the process:
1. If I want to sell or short GBPUSD at 1.2900, I’ll click on the sell button on my terminal where I’ll see two prices: 1.2898
and 1.2900.
When I execute my sell order, the broker will fill my order at 1.2898, charging 2 pips for execution.
This is the difference between the price my order was filled at and the ask/offer price. *
2. Let’s say we want to buy or go long on GBPUSD at 1.2900. When I click the buy button on my terminal; I’ll see two
prices e.g. 1.2900 and 1.2902.
When I execute my buy order, the broker will fill my order at 1.2902, charging 2 pips for execution.
Again, this is the difference between the price my order was filled at and the bid/buy price. *
*Prices stated are for illustrative purposes only.
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2. The Bid-Ask
The difference between the bid (buy) and the ask (sell) prices are indicative of the
nature of the foreign exchange market. As an ‘Over the Counter’ or OTC marketplace,
Ask-Sell Bid-Buy brokers advertise prices, like an auction system from their liquidity providers. This
contrasts with exchange-traded products like stocks, where you execute trades at
the last price the product was traded at. In the OTC Forex market, you are accepting
1.2900 1.2898 prices quoted by your broker that are linked to the underlying price of an instrument.
Still, the broker retains the right to adjust prices based on their available liquidity.
For example in times of high volatility, the broker may widen their spreads.
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3. Spreads may Spread
Now that we understand how the broker provides the prices
offered to their customers, it is essential to know that the
broker spreads may vary depending upon market conditions.
When markets are volatile or fast-moving, due to high impact
economic data or unforeseen market news being released, the
broker may widen spreads.
When markets are quiet and trading is slow, the broker may offer
a relatively tight one or two pip spread. If volatility suddenly
increases and liquidity is tight, the spread may increase to
account for an increased risk faced by the broker. Especially
when the broker is quoting prices that may be difficult to fill
orders in their available liquidity pool.
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4. Why Spreads Matter
So, now that we understand what the spread is and why they may broaden from time to time, we’re going to examine the impact
of spread variance on your profitability.
A single pip here or there may not sound like much but, it can have a major impact on a strategy’s profitability. If you trade with
a broker and access tight spreads; you’re more likely to experience positive outcomes. The secret to your success is not just in
the spread but also in your broker’s execution. The spread is only half the battle. Your broker’s best execution practice will be
important in determining whether you will benefit from the tight spreads they offer.
A broker may advertise tight spreads on your terminal, however, when you pull the trigger on your trade, you may find that your order
is filled two or three pips away from your order level, negatively impacting your desired position. Less reputable brokers engage
in numerous backroom tactics that disadvantage the less savvy trader; delayed execution, stop runs and even trade rejection,
which dramatically erodes the ‘super tight spread’ they claim to offer. In some cases, brokers will cap trade sizes in relation to the
spreads they offer; this is often hidden away in the very small print of the Terms & Conditions.
Spread policies can vary broadly amongst brokers. Some brokers offer fixed spreads; however, on closer inspection, those fixed
spreads are often wider than floating spreads. Essentially you then end up paying a permanent premium for an insurance policy
that is only required a very small percentage of the time. You are better served to find a broker who offers stable pricing, and who
demonstrates execution practices that underpin the spreads they offer.
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5. Slippage causes Issues
The final piece of the puzzle with respect to spreads is understanding that, as mentioned
above, there are certain market conditions where all brokers adjust their spreads to mitigate
their own risk in the market. Most commonly, these periods are due to increased market
volatility, where major news releases encourage fast market action. You should also be
wary of holding positions over the weekend, especially when markets are not under pressure
or there is the chance of major ‘out of trading hours’ news releases. These situations can
lead to gaps in market prices, and if the market gaps through your stop, your broker will
be obligated to fill your order at the next available price. This scenario can have a terminal
impact on your account.
When the Swiss National Bank pulled the ‘the peg’ on their currency, the market cratered
within seconds, causing price gaps that left some traders seriously in the red. The event
even led to some brokerage firms going into liquidation as they couldn’t cover client losses
with their liquidity providers. So, it is essential to truly understand your risk when starting
out, it may even be better to stand aside during high impact economic data releases, closing
out all positions ahead of the weekend, to protect your account.
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6. Commission Structures
Some brokers will apply commission charges to execute orders. Brokers who charge commission tend to offer tighter spreads than brokers
who don’t charge commissions. This is because the broker makes some of their money through their commissions so they can provide
tighter spreads.
Brokers who charge commissions do so in one of two ways:
1. Fixed: fixed commission models mean the broker will bill you a fixed amount, regardless of the size/
volume of your trade. E.G you will be charged the same for trading a micro, mini or standard lot.
2. Floating: a floating fee model means the broker will charge you commission based on the relative size of
your trade. Brokers offering this model will reduce fees based on the frequency and size of trades.
An example of the floating fee model might be that the broker will charge £1.00 per £100,000 of currency traded. So, if we buy £1,000,000
of GBPUSD, we would pay a commission of £10 for trade execution. If a trader sold £10,000,000 of GBPUSD, the brokerage would charge
£100 for executing the trade. Brokers will tend to offer a sliding scale of commission, subject to the net amount of currency traded
When deciding on your preferred commission structure, it’s important to take into account your own trading style or strategy. For example,
scalpers opening many small trades will likely benefit from a floating commission structure, whereby the commissions will be lower due
to the small size of the trades.
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7. Administrative Costs
Brokers also charge administrative costs that
aren’t as broadly advertised or understood as
the headline Spread or Commission fees. Some
brokerages bill customers for inactivity on their
trading accounts if you don’t trade a monthly or
quarterly minimum volume. You could also be
billed for margin costs, and some brokers will
even go as far as charge you for speaking directly
to the broker on the telephone.
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8. Leverage
Leverage is the facility a broker offers, by which a trader can increase the
financial returns on their account versus their initial capital deposited. One
of the principal reasons retail foreign exchange trading has become so
prominent over the past decade is because of the access to leverage.
Those without experience or understanding of how leverage works must
use caution, as being over-leveraged can mean that you become liable for
very high commissions due to excessive leverage. This is because most
brokers charge commissions per lot and the higher the leverage you use,
the more lots you’re able to open.
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9. The Roll (Swaps)
Another often overlooked cost of trading that can add up is the fee a broker will
bill you for holding positions overnight. This cost is called the rollover or swaps
and is specific to the foreign exchange markets. Each currency you trade has its
own associated interest rate depending on the country of origin. So, when holding
an overnight position in a currency pair, eg. GBPUSD, your account is subject to a
daily rate of interest, charged as the difference between the two interest rates of
the forex pair you are trading. These rates are fixed and are applied to your broker
by their liquidity provider in the Interbank (wholesale) market. So, if you hold a long
(buy) GBPUSD position overnight, then the rollover charge will be the equivalent of
the difference between the rates in the UK and the US. This can have a positive or
negative impact on your position.
As an example, if rates in the UK were at 2% and rates in the US were 1%, then the
broker would credit your account by 1%. This is because you are a buyer of the higher
interest rate currency and your trade would benefit from a positive carried interest
rate. If you sold the GBPUSD and held the position overnight, then your broker would
debit your account by 1% as your trade would have a negative carried interest.
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10. Summary
We have learned in this ebook that there are many additional costs that traders need to consider,
above and beyond their directional bias when placing trades. It is essential to a trader’s long-term
success that they are very thorough when deciding who they are going to place their hard-earned
money with.
Traders must be aware of the underlying costs when placing, managing and exiting their trades.
It is important to take your time to compare the spreads and commission structures of brokers.
It is also essential that you look for a broker who provides consistently stable pricing and that the
broker’s execution technology is sufficient to match their spreads, which means that you are able
to take advantage of tight spreads. It is also essential that when developing and backtesting your
trading strategy, you take into account brokerage costs like spreads and slippage, as this is the only
way to get a real-world view on the long-term viability of your strategy. Often once you have proved
the theoretical concept of a profitable strategy through an extensive backtest, it is prudent to place
a small amount of capital on deposit with your broker to forward test the strategy in ‘live market’
conditions as only by doing so will you really see whether the strategy has legs.
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Knowing Your Trading Costs
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CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 73% and 70% of retail investor accounts lose money
when trading CFDs with Tickmill UK Ltd and Tickmill Europe Ltd respectively. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether
you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
www.tickmill.com
