CME Fee Increases Proposed for Futures Traders and Brokers

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange would like to increase Transaction Fees and Data Fees to Trading Platform Users

There are certainly more questions than answers, but it is clear the CME Group intends to increase both transaction fees and the cost of accessing market price data within trading platforms.  *Please note this will have no impact on those who don't use electronic trading platforms to monitor/place trades. 

In our view, the transaction fees likely won't have much of an impact on the average trader. The increase is moderate, and should  be more of an annoyance than a burden. 

However, if the CME proceeds in charging traders for access to real time quotes within a trading platform the impact will be more noticeable.  This could be occurring as early as March of 2014. 

Keep in mind that we are actively and thoroughly opposing these increases in costs to retail traders (which will be levied regardless of brokerage firm or trading platform).  We are also confident that platform programmers will find ways to mitigate the impact of the CME data fee policy to traders via platform upgrades such as slightly delayed quotes, or other optional comprimises; nonetheless, we wanted all of our clients and prospects to be aware of the proposal on the table.

We've recently written an article that is currently published on Trader Planet with our thoughts on how the changes might impact retail traders.

Click here to read our article on Trader Planet

In our opinion, the most profound burden of the new CME fee policies will lie on brokerage firms; more specifically, individual brokers who are responsible for covering the cost of their market data.  Brokers, and others who qualify for the CME's definition of "Professional" are subject to pay data fees per platform, per device; this could inflate market access costs to multiple thousands of dollars per month, per broker.  If you are interested in reading our views on this, the NIBA (National Introducing Broker Association) will  be highlighting some of our opinions in their next newsletter.  We've also posted our thoughts on our website. 

Click here to view our opinion on the potentially excessive market data fees proposed to be charged to "Professionals"

Please keep in mind that this email is meant for informational purposes only.  We are not certain what, if any, data fee increases will look like in the future but we wanted to make sure our followers were privy on the subject to avoid any surprises down the road. 

DeCarley Trading
info@decarleytrading.com
1-866-790-TRADE(8723)
www.ATradersFirstBookonCommodities.com

*There is substantial risk of loss in trading futures and options.