What is a Transaction Cost and How to Calculate It?

In economics, transaction costs are the rate acquired when making an economic exchange. This costs incurred when buying or selling securities or stocks. This is also referred as transaction fees. Transaction costs also comprise of brokers’ commissions ad spreads (difference between the price that the dealer paid for a security and the price it may be sold. This is what the broker or bank produce for being a middleman in a transaction.

For instance, most people when buying or selling a security or stock, pays a commission to their broker and that commission can be considered as the fee or transaction cost for doing that stock deal. When evaluating a potential transaction, it is crucial to think about these costs that might prove significant. Mostly, in financial markets, the initial cost for these transactions is commission which is paid to brokers upon trade execution. This costs becomes increasingly important the shorter the holding time of an investment.

Many market models disregard transactional costs, presumptuous instead those markets are non resistant. While this thought is invalid, for many applications such costs are low enough that they can be disregarded. The lesser the cost for a transaction, the more effective and competent a market is said to be. The Foreign exchange market and stock market have lower costs for such transactions of any major asset class.

It is considered to be much more cost- efficient to trade in Forex in terms of both commissions and transaction fees. An online website for example charges no fees or commissions and at the same time offer traders an access to all relevant market information and trading tools. On the contrary, online stock trade commission ranges from $7.95 - $ 29.95 per trade and up to $100 or more per trade with full service brokers.

Another thing to consider, which is an important point is the width of the bid / ask spread. Regardless of the deal size, foreign exchange dealing spreads are normally or common in 3-4 pips (anyway a pip is .0001 US cents) in the major currencies. Generally, the width of the spread in a foreign exchange market transaction is less than one tenth (1/10) that of a stock transaction, which could contain a .125 or one eight (1/8) wide spread.

Since transaction costs are paid via bid/ask spread, there has to be no charges to trade or hidden fees. There are instances that there would be extra charges asked by good brokers for some non compulsory services or access to particular reports. A smaller spread is visibly better. Since brokers are taking the other side of all the customer trades, brokers gain profit by making the spread between the bid and offer prices. You may find that find spreads vary by broker.

In order to be successful in trading on the foreign exchange market, you have to find a good broker.