Jebus, I cant tell if saving 80% of costs by trading futures instead of cfds is realistic expectation, but I think they will be overall significantly lower. it’s not like one is paying zero “overnight financing” while trading futures: one “pays” via so called cost of carry, which is built into the futures price. the big difference: cost of carry is market driven (for index futures: relevant market interest rate minus expected dividend yield), while cfd brokers take relevant market interest rate plus basically whatever they want on top as “handling fee” – which is huge (well, some cfd brokers are charging less than others). for more realistic expectation one should also count with paying spread (at least 1 tick) with every futures transaction, unless one enters/exits market with limit orders. possibly (or even probably) you will save on slippage when trading liquid futures (not all are really liquid, e.g. dax micro is a bit of desaster).

yet I think the ultimate advantage of trading futures is that you are acting on real and so on maximally fair market when it comes to price building. cfds (at least indices) are just kind of blurred mirror, sometimes showing just a bit distorted picture of what’s happening on the real market, and sometimes the distortion is massive (in extreme case cfd broker can simply refuse to take your order, so you kind of have no price at all at certain moments). cfd prices being “blurry” is by the way also a reason, why you will probably need to tweak at least partially your algos when moving them from cfds to futures. even if you put your original cfd-algo on futures data and you are immediately and absolutely happy (hopefully) – please try small variations of your parameters anyway – you might face very interesting findings. also: if you somewhere calculate price “distances” in % – try index points instead. so for example take 10 (or what ever amount of) points instead of 0.20%. don’t know if that works for single stocks, but for indices the effect might be amazing – depending on one’s strategy of course. sounds not very logical – because 20 points let say for dax 15 years ago is totally different price change %-wise compared to today, but hell – if 20 points works today and worked 15 years ago better than certain fixed % over those full 15 years – who cares if it sounds logical or not.

in sum: it’s huge advantage that when trading futures one is dealing with market driven factors: first of all market driven price building but also market driven cost of trading.

from cfd-“world” I am missing mostly “guaranteed stoploss” with futures – since some of my algos carry positions over weekends and exchange holidays. if somebody has an (proven) idea/method how to make a “synthetic” guaranteed stop for futures – I would very much appreciate an advise!

jebus89 wrote: On a rough average what does it cost (fees) to trade via IB for you? And how many trades on average per day or week or year do you do?

JS wrote: I make approximately 200 trades per year (per system) and I currently pay €1.45 commission per transaction…

Apples and oranges all over the place here. What is involved :

• What is the distribution on Minis and Micros ?
• Per type, what is the average contract size ?
• What instruments is it about in the first place ? (hint : Euronext is really not the same as CME)
• Does your answer (JS) incorporate those credits or not ? (this relates to the 2nd bullet point)
• How is a “per system” (JS) correlated ?
• What does your (JS) €1.45 comprise of anyway ?
• A “trade” (JS) should comprise of both sides (In+Out), but does it ?

Just trying to understand the 1.45 because in no way it resembles what I can derive of it all. Not even when you pile all up with all the mixes imaginable. So for example, would I pile up the cheapest means for CME only (Micro), it would be USD 1.24 ~ EUR 1.03 minus EUR 0.50 credit = 0.53 – and this is then about 1 contract.

For the most expensive means for CME only (Mini), it would be USD 4.50 ~ EUR 3.75 minus EUR 1 credit = EUR 2.75. This would be about 1 contract as well.

Please note : I am only trying to understand – and of course it is in the context of what I coughed up myself; What should jebus89 take for his calculations ?

Rate per order…

Hi JS,

I am trying to comprehend … and maybe this is not for the public really …

I am not aware of different tariffs for different people/accounts – still what you show is very different from mine. So that’s why the confusion.

1. You pay either 0,50 or 0,25 per contract (one side). If you say “200 trades per system” (still don’t know the relevance) then it would be my hunch that you’re in the “Trader” category hence the 2nd picture. EDIT : But I see your show the middle column, hence my first pic. Something is odd here …
2. To either the clearance costs must be added – see 3rd pic. That would be 0,37 per contract (per side).
3. Both total to 0,25 + 0,37 = 0,62 (per side) = the price I mentioned.

There is nothing else**, unless you don’t use PRT (then all is moot).

**): But there is the credits and this is 0,50 per trade, which is per full trade AFAIK. However, you don’t talk about this anyway, so we can skip this.

Thus, 0,62 while your list “Commissie” shows 0,74.

Why ?

Just in case : I am not aware of discount programs for Micros, hence I would not receive those (and the PRT screenshots I showed are just what I pay as well). For Minis discount programs do exist, but this is not something that goes by simple “more volume”. Plus and again, the screenshot I showed can in this context be regarded counting for every one, hence also for you. At least that would be my idea about it.

PS : jebus, you should try to comply to the 1st screenshot at least (2nd is also fine) or else the commission is 1 euro per side (not shown).

Sure. If you don’t mind it is of Dec. 10, 2025 … (this is less cluttered with various other instruments after randomly traying a few days)

Yes, and you are somewhere in between; something which does not exist.

Can you show your PRT page, like I showed a couple of posts back ? I mean, does it ever show the same as what I showed you ?

The net results from our both Commission columns we believe, but is it correct ?

I repeat : what mine shows complies to indeed that third trier. But what you show does not comply to any tier that I can see.

?

Those from my post here here :

… the linking does not work …

From my post more above with these 3 pics in it.