Like many, I saw the cost of trades go from $20, $7, partially-free on some certain selections, to now completely free.
So - now with a few years of history on this, has this been good for the market overall? And for retail traders in particular?
I'm skeptical since rarely does free actually mean free. FB and Google are "free" but comes at a certain cost.
But as computers are doing all the work, why shouldn't these transactions be free? We have complete faith in the transaction software, and obviously hardly any physical paperwork involved.
But something nags at me - years ago, with those $20 fee's, I feel like I put more thought into a trade. And it seems these days, even if that cost were 10 cents or a dollar, that'd prevent (or reduce) people just more casually just "selling everything" and rebuying on a whim.
So I've wondered if the Zero-Commission being fairly widespread now, has it contributed to more volatility in the market? (more so than there may have been if we had kept some form of commission fee?)
Not that we're going back, just curious on what people think about it upon reflection of a few years now.
So - now with a few years of history on this, has this been good for the market overall? And for retail traders in particular?
I'm skeptical since rarely does free actually mean free. FB and Google are "free" but comes at a certain cost.
But as computers are doing all the work, why shouldn't these transactions be free? We have complete faith in the transaction software, and obviously hardly any physical paperwork involved.
But something nags at me - years ago, with those $20 fee's, I feel like I put more thought into a trade. And it seems these days, even if that cost were 10 cents or a dollar, that'd prevent (or reduce) people just more casually just "selling everything" and rebuying on a whim.
So I've wondered if the Zero-Commission being fairly widespread now, has it contributed to more volatility in the market? (more so than there may have been if we had kept some form of commission fee?)
Not that we're going back, just curious on what people think about it upon reflection of a few years now.
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