How to Avoid High Trading Fees on FTX

RAMA38.MY.ID -Firstrade’s average trading fee of $9.95 isn’t the lowest in the industry, but it does offer several options to help you keep your costs down when trading stocks and ETFs online through your Firstrade brokerage account. 

Trading fees are only one part of your total cost when buying and selling stocks online, so you should also take into account how many dollars you’ll pay in commissions, what services are available to help you invest more effectively, and any other fees or charges you’ll encounter along the way.

Check the minimum deposit for your account

If you're a beginner, the minimum deposit for your account is $10.00. For those who are more experienced and want access to higher-level trading strategies, the minimum deposit is $1,000.00. 

It's important to note that your balance will be rounded up when calculating fees so if you make a trade worth $9.99, you'll pay the same as if you had made a trade worth $10.00 or more! You can avoid this by making sure to round down your trades. 

Also, remember that every time you withdraw from your account, we'll charge a fee of 0.5% of the withdrawal amount plus any currency conversion fees charged by our bank (typically 3%). So withdrawing small amounts each day is better than withdrawing one large sum. 

And finally, there are limits on how much you can deposit in a given day; the limit varies depending on your level of experience but is typically around 10 times what you deposited. 

Remember these three simple rules to avoid high trading fees round down trades to avoid the rounding up of balances when calculating fees; withdraw small amounts daily rather than one large sum monthly; and deposit an amount equal to at least 10 times what you've deposited previously. 

Your individual investment goals determine which type of trader you are. Whether it's earning incremental gains over time or trying to capitalize on quick movements, invest responsibly and never invest money that you cannot afford to lose! 

As long as you follow these basic guidelines and have realistic expectations about the risks associated with trading, you should be able to maximize returns while minimizing risks. Good luck out there!

Check your balance before you trade

You should always check your balance before you trade. You can do this by visiting the Balance tab in the top navigation bar of the app. 

You can also see your current balance when you log in to your account and scroll down under Your Funds. Your available balance will be shown at the top of that screen and your total funds, including any deposits made into a bank account, will be shown below. 

To avoid trading fees, we recommend not trading if you have less than $2,000 in your account. If you want to make a quick trade for something like $150 worth of bitcoin or ether but only have $100 left in your account, we recommend withdrawing some money from your bank account and then trading from there. 

If you don't have enough cash in your bank account to withdraw, you can use an external source such as PayPal or Venmo to fund your withdrawal from the app. 

In these cases, when transferring from an external source such as PayPal or Venmo, please allow up to 3 days for the transaction amount to show up in your account. 

The full balance might not reflect in your account immediately because funds might still be processing during the first few hours after it is initiated. 

We understand sometimes people want to buy something quickly with what they currently have, so our traders are allowed a 24-hour grace period to execute trades without paying trading fees. 

As long as the trader executes their trade within that time frame, they won’t pay trading fees. After those 24 hours expire, we start charging traders standard commission rates based on their status level: 

Standard - 0.5% 

VIP - 0.25% 

Basic - 0.75% Master - 0.25% 

Partner - 0.10% 

Black Diamond Elite - 0.05%.

Always use limit orders

A limit order is an order placed at a specific price. A market order is an order executed at the current market price, which can result in higher trading fees. 

By placing a limit order, you can specify the price that you would like to buy or sell at and avoid paying high fees. Use Limit Orders - always use limit orders. 

Limit orders are orders placed at a specific price; market orders are executed at the current market prices, which can be more expensive. 

For example: if you place a market order for 1 BTC @ $8500 per BTC your fee will be $2.00 but if you place a limit order for 1 BTC @ $8500 your fee will be only $0.02 (10% less). 

As a general rule, you should set up limit orders with tight spreads (small difference between the buying and selling prices). Your tightest spreads have to do with currency pairs such as USD/CAD, EUR/GBP. You want the spread to be narrow so that the trade will go through quickly. 

You also want the exchange rate offered by the broker to be competitive. Keep these two factors in mind when choosing where you'll execute trades.

Try opening a practice account with fiat currency first

One way to avoid high trading fees is by practicing with a practice account. Practice accounts are free, and let you try out trading before committing any of your own money. You can open a practice account with either fiat currency or cryptocurrency. 

If you want to trade with crypto, use bitcoin because it has the lowest fee structure. When opening a practice account, make sure you're using the same type of currency as your personal account. 

For example, if you plan on only trading in USD, don't open a practice account with CAD; if you plan to only trade in EURO, don't open a practice account with GBP. 

As long as both your personal and practice accounts are in the same type of currency (e.g., both dollars), you will be able to transfer between them at no cost. 

Once you've practiced enough to feel comfortable trading, you can convert your practice account back into crypto and send it over to your personal account. 

Keep in mind that conversion rates fluctuate so there may be times when exchanging one currency for another isn't worth it—in which case, just keep practicing! 

When converting from fiat currency to crypto, we recommend keeping this exchange small ($10-50) so it's not too much of a hassle. 

And when converting from crypto to fiat currency, we recommend keeping this exchange small ($10-50) so there aren't too many transaction fees.

Stay away from margin trades until you get more experienced

When you trade with margin, your broker borrows money from your account in order to execute the trade. The cost of borrowing money is called interest and it's typically charged at a higher rate than normal for margin trades. 

Plus, if the market moves against you before your position is closed out, you'll end up owing more money than you originally had in your account. As a result, trading on margin can be very expensive and risky. 

For this reason, we recommend that beginners stay away from using margin until they get more experience. Instead, look into other ways to invest like investing in a portfolio of stocks and ETFs or diversifying across asset classes such as commodities futures. 

To help avoid the high-interest rates associated with margin trading, set a stop loss when you're considering opening positions. If the price falls below your stop-loss level then close your position because it will help limit losses while protecting some of your profits. 

And when executing a buy or sell transaction on any instrument - stock, index, currency pair - always use limit orders instead of market orders. 

Market orders mean that your order will be executed at whatever the current market price is at the time; with a limit order, however, you specify how much you want to pay or receive per share/unit of currency. So let's say I want to purchase 100 shares of ABC Company. 

My initial thought might be I want to purchase 100 shares so I'm going to put in an offer for 1 share. That would not be a good idea because there may not actually be 100 shares available at my desired purchase price.

Spread your trades out between multiple currencies to avoid high fees

Avoiding high trading fees is easier than ever with the introduction of Currency Pairs. If you want to buy an altcoin, you can use one of the many exchanges that offers a pairing with Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), and then trade your BTC or ETH for the altcoin of your choice. 

This way, instead of paying a large fee when you convert from USD -> BTC -> USD, or ETH -> BTC -> ETH, you'll only be charged once when exchanging between two currencies. 

For example, if you wanted to buy Stellar Lumens (XLM) but don't have any XLM in your account, first convert your funds into BTC or ETH by going through either Coinbase or Gemini. 

Then go back to the exchange where you had originally wanted to purchase XLM and swap it out with BTC or ETH. The difference? Instead of paying 1% as a trading fee, you'll only be charged 0.1%. 

It might not seem like much, but it adds up! Especially if you're trying to grow your portfolio, every percentage point counts. 

For example, $10 worth of coins traded at a rate of 1% would cost $10*.01 = $0.10 - whereas $10 worth of coins traded at a rate of 0.1% would cost $0.01 - just 10 cents! 

And since there are no minimums for currency pairs, you could buy $5 worth of XEM without having to worry about the higher-than-usual trading fees typically associated with low-value transactions. 

You may still be able to receive lower rates than this depending on how often you trade and the volume of trades.