Hi everyone,
Yes this issue has brought to my attention by few traders. They sent me their statement and I am looking at it. Here are my thoughts:
1CMEG apparently did not charge ECN fees until August 2018, and they actually lost money on it. This was an internal mistake from their side. So many traders are surprised seeing ECN fees, but in fact, they are actually very normal and every broker is charging them. So part of frustration was because many people were shocked seeing them, while they were benefiting from a free ECN rebates in the past.
From what I see, CMEG ECN fees are normal compare to other brokers. The list is here: https://www.cmelitegroup.com/rates-and-conditions/trade-fees As you see, most ECNs are chargin around $0.003-0.004 per share for marketable orders (removing liquidity). This advertised fees is also standard with other brokers such as SpeedTrader, CenterPoint or IB. https://centerpointsecurities.com/stock-broker-dealer/pricing-brokerage-fees/
I looked at few of my trades, and I saw IB also charges me in the range of 0.003 per share ECN fees in addition to 0.002 tiered per share commission trucutre. See below my IB commissions on 3 trades on MU and AMD.
My calculation for IB with 0.002 per share commission shows:
One of our trades ECN fee:
Overall, I think ECN fees of CMEG is not unreasonable. I see why most people got surprised, because they did not have it on August and before. But you should know that CMEG made a mistake so far by not charging those properly. ECN fees are common to be charged to traders by all brokers.
Am I missing something?