The quoted costs
Bid, Ask, and the Space Between Them
Every quoted market runs two prices at once: one you can sell into, one you can buy from. What each is, and why there are never fewer than two.
4 min read
Category
The quoted costs
The charges a broker states up front — the spread, commission and overnight financing. These can be compared before you open an account, and mostly are not.
The quoted costs
Commission Models: Per-Lot, Per-Side, Spread-Only
Zero-commission is not zero-cost. How the three charging models work, why they are not comparable on either number alone, and how to add both halves up.
4 min read
The quoted costs
Overnight Financing: What You Pay to Hold
A daily charge for holding a leveraged position past the cut-off. Why it exists, how it compounds, and why it decides whether a long hold was worth it.
4 min read
The quoted costs
What a Spread Is, and Who Decides It
The spread is the gap between the buy and sell price, and it is the first cost of every trade. What it is, who sets it, and why it changes during the day.
6 min read
The quoted costs
What Trading Costs Actually Consist Of
Trading costs are not one number. They are a stack of charges and frictions, set by different people, arriving at different moments. Here is the stack.
4 min read