What this publication is, and what it is not

This is not advice

The Fill Desk publishes general educational material about trading costs and execution mechanics. Nothing here is investment advice, a personal recommendation, or a suggestion that you should trade any instrument, at any time, in any size. We do not know your circumstances, and nothing on this site is tailored to them.

Trading carries a high risk of loss

Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money quickly. Losses can exceed the amount you expected to risk, particularly where a position moves through the level you intended to exit at — which is a mechanism covered in detail here, because it is routinely misunderstood.

Leverage increases the size of a position relative to the money behind it. That magnifies losses in exactly the same proportion as gains, and it increases the cost of holding, because financing is charged on the full position rather than on your deposit.

Understanding costs is not an edge

This is worth stating plainly, because a publication about reducing costs could easily be read as promising something it does not.

Knowing what you are charged, and paying less of it, does not make a losing approach profitable. It does not predict prices, it does not improve your judgement, and it is not a strategy. Costs are a drag on whatever your results would otherwise have been. Reducing a drag is worth doing; it is not the same thing as having something worth doing it to.

No figures here are yours

Spreads, commissions and financing rates vary by broker, instrument, account type and hour. Where this site explains a mechanism, it is describing how the charge works, not what you will be charged. Your own broker’s published terms are the only authority on that, and checking them is your responsibility rather than ours.

Past conditions are not future conditions

Where this site cites market data, it is cited with its date and its scope. Market depth, spreads and volatility change. A description of how a market behaved in one period is not a forecast of how it will behave in another.

If you are unsure

If you are considering trading and are uncertain whether it is appropriate for you, seek independent advice from someone authorised to give it in your jurisdiction. We are a publisher. We are not authorised to advise you, and we are not holding ourselves out as able to.