Many are also in the business of generating trading commissions for their firms.

Investors also pay trading commissions, which can be considerable if the portfolio has frequent turnover.

Online brokerage firms have cut and cut their trading commissions over the last year.

The firm, they said, encouraged traders to sign up relatives and friends to invest large sums of money to bolster trading commissions.

Now, though, we are seeing trading commissions drop.

To be honest, the real economics to the underwriter that will change are the trading commissions that come back from preferential accounts.

In late August, the firm opened a broker-dealer subsidiary to give clients greater flexibility in paying for research with trading commissions.

Gold pays no income and can be expensive to store, and trading commissions are typically far higher than those for stocks and bonds.

What could sound better to somebody who spends his days buying and selling stocks than an account that charges no fee and no trading commissions?

He spoke at a meeting of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's financial products advisory committee.