Sunday, August 5th, 2007

10 trading costs to cut in a volatile market

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Everyone knows that great businesses control costs, particularly when times get tough.

Traders should regularly audit their expenses and pare back any that are unnecessary.

The key is to be brutally honest: do you really need this product, loan, service, etc, to be profitable? Is it adding value?

Here are ten areas where costs should be closely watched:

1.      Data fees (Does the information delivered directly lead to trading decisions?)

2.      Broking costs (Shop around)

3.      Slippage (My broker got bought out by a larger operator and slippage seems to have skyrocketed)

4.      Internet site subscriptions (Everyone has access to this information: does it really give you an edge?)

5.      Magazines (Can’t you read them at the library?)

6.      Newspapers (There is almost no worthwhile trading-related information in them)

7.      Margin loans (Interest are often high: are you earning a margin above the lending rate to justify borrowing? Really?)

8.      Unnecessary trades (Are marginal, sloppy trades wasting money and energy?)

9.      Trading mistakes (Can you implement controls to minimise these?)

10.    Taxes (Is your trading tax-efficient; or at least in a tax-efficient vehicle?)

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