FINRA is charging the brokers this fee and has been for a few years - this is what it covers: The Trading Activity Fee, or TAF, is one of the member regulatory fees FINRA assesses to recover the costs the supervising and regulating firms. This includes costs associated with performing examinations, financial monitoring, and FINRA’s policy, rulemaking, interpretive, and enforcement activities. http://www.finra.org/industry/trading-activity-fee
Etrade is now passing off this fee to their customers.
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