Hi Perambulator - I don't know how you got this message. There's no sense in which the explanation for the new fee structure is that 'we aren't interested in the small guys.' Rather, I was explaining why the fee increase isn't as large for the small guys - how does that add up to not caring about them? When I said this,
We wouldn't gain much by raising our highest fee to 0.4% over 0.35% and we thought it was more important to have the highest fee start a bit lower.
perhaps I should have added that the reason we felt it was more important to have the highest fee start a bit lower is precisely because of our concern for the small guy.
Edit: perhaps you thought the 80/20 rule I mentioned was a target we were shooting for. If so, that's not the case. It was just a statement of fact about our volume profile. We didn't in any way intend this, it just turns out that the majority of volume is created by a minority of traders. My guess is that it's about the same on most exchanges. That's why it's become a rule, because it has been found to hold across most markets.
Actually it was a combination of the fact that not only have you increased fees, you have dramatically increased the level of volume required to achieve a more advantageous fee..
As an example, I currently trade a little over $50,000, and my fee rate is 0.14%. Under your new terms, I will be charged more than double, at 0.29%. In order to attain a comparable fee schedule of 0.14%, I would have to increase my trade volume from $50,000 to
$700,000. That is just incredible, and I don't see how this matches your claim to still be interested in the little guy (and personally I think 50,000$ is not a small amount!)