Who Wins a Brokerage Price War? While commission-free trades have become the norm for customers of discount online brokers, in October 2019, it was big news. Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, and Ally Invest all cut equity commissions to zero the first week of October 2019, and Fidelity joined the crowd on October 10. Bank of America's Merrill Edge extended free trading to all members of its loyalty program on October 21.To get more news about low commissions brokers, you can visit wikifx.com official website. The industry had been taking baby steps in that direction for several years. Major online brokers started offering a select list, averaging 50-100, of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for no commission back in 2010. In early 2017, Schwab set off a round of commission cuts that re-set the industry-wide base commission rate at $4.95-$6.95, slashing fees from $7.95-$9.95. Jennifer Butler, director of asset management and broker research at Corporate Insight, says, "A lot of this movement is geared towards inactive traders, but I don't think they'll make up the revenue by opening new accounts." She believes that brokers are moving further into providing advice in order to function in an environment free of commissions on stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). When analyzing the robo-advisor offerings available for our 2020 Best Robo-Advisors Awards, online brokers that also offer managed accounts pushed their customers, often not very subtly, into those products. What About Cash? A look at a broker's financial statements shows that firms are not dependent only on revenue from trading. According to Schwab's filings with the SEC, approximately 40% of the company's revenue came from interest revenue for the three months ending March 2021. Cash Sweeps According to Schwab, holding uninvested cash in a brokerage account is best for short-term situations where the investor is planning to spend the money within a few days or will soon place a trade. Long-term cash should be invested in a higher-yielding option, such as a certificate of deposit (CD) or yield-bearing savings account. How Do Brokers Make Money Without Equity and Options Base Commissions? Several brokers share the revenue they generate with their clients who hold the stock that is lent out in their stock loan programs. For example, Interactive Broker has a stock-yield enhancement program that enables its customers to earn extra income by allowing the company to lend out fully paid shares of stock held in their account. The firm lends these shares to other traders who want to borrow them in order to sell them short and are willing to pay interest to do so. This interest is then shared between the broker and the customer lending the stock. |