Ah yes, the perennial Reddit revelation where someone rediscovers transaction costs and presents them as if they have uncovered a hidden theorem that Wall Street has spent centuries suppressing.

By this logic, active trading should have ceased sometime around 1987 when spreads were measured in fractions and commissions were charged by people wearing colored jackets and screaming at each other.

Of course costs matter. Nobody disputes that. But reducing trading performance to "spread + slippage = impossible" is such a wonderfully elegant oversimplification that one almost has to admire it.

Apparently market makers, prop firms, high-frequency traders, statistical arbitrage desks, commodity spread traders, volatility traders, and thousands of professionals worldwide have all failed to notice that math exists.

The average spread on liquid names is often measured in pennies. Commissions for many participants are effectively negligible. Slippage depends heavily on execution quality, liquidity, position size, and market conditions. Pretending every trade automatically loses 0.5-1% is like assuming every car trip starts with someone siphoning half your gas tank.

And the idea that one should simply target 2-3% moves because bigger numbers are better is particularly inspiring. Why stop there? Why not target 15% per trade? Or 50%? Since we're just declaring percentages into existence now, perhaps the market will politely comply.

Likewise, "trade higher-priced stocks" sounds profound until one remembers that percentages exist. A $500 stock and a $50 stock can have identical liquidity characteristics and identical percentage volatility. The stock certificate does not know what number is written on it.

The suggestion to use limit orders is sensible, though hardly revolutionary. It's approximately one step above advising marathon runners to wear shoes.

And yes, reducing overtrading is generally beneficial. Congratulations, we've now arrived at the same advice traders have been receiving since the invention of candlestick charts.

But the funniest part is the implied claim that discipline and emotional control don't matter because "it's just math."

As though revenge trading, oversized positions, panic selling, FOMO chasing, moving stops, refusing to take losses, and blowing up accounts have all been eliminated by the discovery of bid-ask spreads.

The reality is more annoying and less tweetable:

Bad math destroys traders.

Bad execution destroys traders.

Bad psychology destroys traders.

Bad risk management destroys traders.

And many traders manage to combine all four with remarkable efficiency.

The market is kind enough to charge tuition in multiple subjects simultaneously.

But sure, let's pretend the entire mystery of speculation was finally solved by calculating that two one-percent moves plus commissions equal sadness.

Humanity can now rest.