Monday, December 2, 2013

Stock broking, a new reality

Trading on SGX dived to a low of $914m daily after the recent penny stock crash. Superficially it is still a big number to generate a decent income for the brokerages and the remisiers. But what is real? My guesstimate is that 90%, could be more, of the daily trades are done by computer traders and house traders which generates zero commission. Assuming that this is true, the balance 10% or $90m, to round up the number for ease, would generate at max $450k at 0.5% or $270m at 0.3%.
 

Using an average of $350k, the broking houses’ share would be $210k or $10.5k per house (assuming that there are 20 houses). The average monthly intake would be less than $230k for one brokerage.
 

In the case of remisiers, the share of commission is $140k. Assuming there are 3000 remisiers, the daily income per remisier on the average will be $46. Multiply this by 22 days, the monthly income of an average remisier is about $1000.
 

The numbers are frightening and a pittance from the heydays. Is this sustainable for an industry of 20,000 people? Is this sustainable for a regionable stock exchange, a financial centre? Is this what we call a vibrant stock exchange?
 

Or is this the intensive ward for the critically ill? How long can this last before the patient breathes his last breath?

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