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KEY POINTS
1. We are referring to stock brokers in this video. Brokers in other industries are similar, but there may be some differences.
2. Commissions and fees are the most straightforward way that brokers make money. In addition to commissions charged per trade -- which can vary based on the size of the order, how it is placed (via phone or online), as well as what securities are being traded -- some brokers can charge fees if the account falls below a minimum required amount; fees for withdrawal; fees for transferring to another brokerage account; inactivity fees if the account does not meet a minimum number of trades. Understanding all the various fees can help traders understand the direct cost they will experience.
3. Cash that is sitting in trading accounts and not deployed into positions can earn interest. Some brokers will keep all of this interest, while other brokers will give a portion to clients. In any event, this is a source of revenue for brokers, and is one that often comes at the expense of traders.Traders can diligently manage their idle cash by ensuring it is deployed in interest-yielding money market funds that also meet their liquidity needs (though such funds will not be FDIC insured, and may have other nuances that are important to traders).
4. Brokers also earn revenue by lending capital to customers who seek to put on margin trades. In such scenarios, traders are borrowing capital from their broker -- at interest -- to put on trades; the more they borrow and the longer the duration of their borrowing, the more the broker earns in interest from making the loan.
5. Short selling is another source of revenue for brokerage firms. Customers who short shares pay a fee to the owner of the stock that is lending them the shares. Shares purchased via a brokerage and not transferred to DRS are held in the broker's name, and thus it is the broker -- not their client who paid for the shares -- who earns revenue when these shares are lent out to shorts (typically without much in the form of notifying the buyer). If this topic is unclear, please see our video street registration vs. direct registration, which explains the nuances of share ownership in greater detail.
6. Last but certainly not least is payment for order flow, a practice in which brokers are compensated for sending their orders to other firms -- typically high frequency trading firms -- who can use this information to inform their own positions, and identify arbitrage opportunities. This practice is controversial because it may result in the brokers' clients getting a worse fill on their order, which ultimately results in a higher transaction cost. At least in the United States, brokers in the are required to disclose if they are paid for order flow -- and so examining their contracts and speaking to their representatives maybe worthwhile for trades concerned about how brokers are routing their orders.
