Commissions: Commissions have become much smaller in the past two decades.Twenty years ago, there were still brokers who charged one-way commissions of between half a percent and one percent of trade value. Buying a thousand shares of GE at $20 a share, with a total value of $20,000, would have set you back $100 to $200 on the way in—and again on the way out. Fortunately for traders, commission rates have plummeted. The extortionate rates haven’t completely disappeared. While preparing this book for publication, I received an e-mail from a client in Greece with a small ac- count whose broker—a major European bank—charged him a $40 minimum on any trade. I told him of my broker whose minimum for a hundred shares is only $1. Without proper care, even seemingly small numbers can raise a tall barrier to success. Look at a fairly active trader with a $20,000 account, doing one roundtrip trade per day, four days a week. Paying $10 one way, by the end of the week he’ll spend $80 in commi...