As I said... for my methods fixed is better. If I buy at 1.5000 I am selling at 1.5010 or 1.5020 depending on certain tools I use. So again for me... it is better working with fixed spreads. I do realize that for most using gut emotions flopping in and out that average of 2 pips trade that may not be the case. While every week is different, what I trade and how I had 32 round trips with an average profit of 17.4 pips. Each were limit orders determined in advance of a market move.
IF I paid commission it would have taken away from my bottom line period. That is not to say that spreads don't matter. If they were to wide - it is possible that I would not have a given trade take place. If that missed opportunity happened once last week that would have added a cost of about 1/4 of a pip R/T. While it did not happen - if I missed 4 last week - paying commission would be break-even and so on.

Everyone has to do there own workup for the way they trade and run the numbers or trade one broker one fixed - same trades and run out a P/L total. I run my trades with more than one broker for a number of reasons. One minor one is that I can compare fill rates (number of orders entered vs number filled).

There are many ways to trade the markets. Use the tools you think work best - then verify the results.




This is obvious I should think.

Let's say your broker has no commission and a 2 pip fixed spread. Let's then say you buy at 1.5000, then instantly sell for example. So you sell at 1.4998, a loss of 2 pips.

Now say you do the same with a commission broker that has a very tight spread, say 0.5 pips, and they also charge 0.5 pips commission per trade (so 1.0 pips round turn, buy + sell). You buy at 1.5000, sell at 1.4999.5 (a 0.5 pip loss); add the 1.0 pip commission and you're at a loss of 1.5 pips vs 2 pips with the fixed spread broker.

Of course EU has very tight spreads, so this can calculate out differently with different pairs, but that's the basic math...

Hope that helps [/quote]