Why do people trade financial instruments with a spread AND commission?

Hi.. Ive been lurking around here for sometime and this actually is my first post so please dont bash me for a silly question ive observed that traders are more interested in trading markets (stocks options futures cfds) that has spread and a commission too as compared to forex that has comparatively low trading cost (just the spread).. why is that so ? Is it mainly because it is governed through an exchange and people with big amounts feel their money is safe unlike forex that is OTC? Or that volume is known ?
Im not at all advocating forex but just wanted to know whats the catch ..

Btw people on this forum are doing a great job

Thanks

Re: why do people trade financial instruments with a spread AND commission ?

FX dosn't mean always lower overall costs.

A EURUSD spread of 2pips, 1.1150 & 1.1152 . A $100k will become $99982.

A SPY (SP500 ETF) of 206 & 206.01 will become $99995.15 after spread, commissions on my IB account is $2.42 for 485 shares, so it will become $99992.7.

So if I had $100k to trade and basing it on pure costs, the share is superior.

Re: why do people trade financial instruments with a spread AND commission ?

Could you please elaborate a bit on how u came up with these numbers cuz i got a bit confused..

Those were the bid & ask of EURUSD & SPY at the time of writing that post. I just assumed making a transaction and closing it, at the market bid & ask.

So for FX $100k divide by 1.1152 to go long EURUSD then multiplied by 1.1150 to close the position back into base currency (USD in this case). No commissions were subtracted, just 2 pips spread which is very typical of FX.

SPY (share) is pretty simple, $100k divide by the stock ask price, 206.01 to get number of shares, multiplied by the bid (206.00) to sell the shares, then minus the commissions.

Ahh got it.. thanks for explaining... but that commission and spread is really low.. ive seen prices that optionxpress, commsec, optionhouse etc offer and thats around $10 for the trip.. and eurusd spreads of 1.5 pips are also easily available.. some even offer around 0.8 pips...
Is it wise for someone with small capital (around $2000) who hasnt been successful at forex yet to look for other markets ? I mean are there better odds keeping in mind that he trades purely on TA ?

THANKS