The "daily Call" From Option Alpha: Options Trading | Stock Options | Stock Trading | Trading Online

Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again at Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. Today, we’re going to be talking about broker commissions and in particular, the difference between ticket charges and per contract charges. When many people sign up with a brokerage, they are usually looking at the per contract charge. In fact, that's what I’ve generally seen over the past couple of years, is that brokers actually show their per contract fees. Their per contract charge might be $.65 or $.30 or $.50 and that's what people see. I’m not downing the brokers or faulting them for doing it. It’s just that’s the way that they promote their services on a per contract basis. But what many brokers actually have is what’s called a ticket charge and so, when they have a ticket charge, what they will do is they will charge you a fee per trade that you do in addition to the per contract fees that they charge you. Let's say you are trading any option contract, it doesn’t really matter, but you're going to trade two con