The all-in cost of one futures trade

Fourth costs module, same closing move: the lines priced separately get assembled into the number the trade's target must clear. Futures assemble the platform's smallest lines - and the assembly still matters, because futures margins for error are thin by design.

One position, assembled

A one-contract index future held one quarter, at the module's worked figures: £6 of round turn, £20 of entry-exit spread at one tick each way, one roll - £6 of round turn again wearing £20 of spread across two crossings, plus the £200 roll gap... the honest version nets the roll's instalment against the arithmetic already counted, and the clean assembly reads: £6 + £20 + £40 + £20 + £32 of capital's price = £118 on £80,000 of exposure for the quarter. A few basis points - the platform's cheapest maintained exposure, priced honestly at last.

The shape by trade type

• Day trades: the stack and the spread, times frequency - the overheads' hurdle looms largest here, and everything else vanishes.
• Held positions: the roll dominates with holding period, as lesson 5 placed it - plus the capital line the long horizon accrues.
• Event trades: the slippage budget doubles and quantises - lesson 6's staircase around the calendar's minutes.

The comparison, and the module's close

The assembled number completes the three-wrapper comparison this platform has built across four tracks: futures' few basis points against the CFD meter against ownership's zero-with-everything-parked - per idea, per holding period, decided by arithmetic. The module's close: futures costs are the platform's most honest and mostly its smallest, the two standing exceptions - the roll and the cash machinery - are exactly where the reading matters, and every line now has a number module 6 can charge. Module 4 next: the risk machinery for an asset class where leverage is the structure, not a choice.