Eighteen R Down the Drain (And Why That Is Fine)
Realistic commission and swap cost model per instrument accounting for spread, commission, and overnight financing at -18.3R total.
The Three Costs Nobody Likes
Every trade has three costs beyond slippage: the spread (bid-ask), the commission (broker fee per lot), and swap (overnight financing charge). S33 models all three per instrument because costs vary dramatically. A EURUSD trade costs approximately 0.8 pips in spread plus $7/lot commission. A BTCUSD trade costs 25+ pips equivalent in spread plus higher commissions.
The total transaction cost across all 4,505 trades is -18.3R. That is 18.3R that the strategy generated in gross return but surrendered to the market infrastructure. Gross total R is approximately 552R. Net after all costs is 533.9R.
Cost Breakdown by Cluster
FOREX trades are cheapest at an average 0.003R per trade in total costs. INDEX trades cost 0.004R. METALS cost 0.005R. CRYPTO is the most expensive at 0.008R per trade. These per-trade costs seem trivial, but they compound across thousands of trades.
The swap cost component is heavily skewed toward trades held for multiple days. A EURUSD buy held for 5 days accrues approximately 0.01R in swap charges. For the average 12-bar hold time (3 hours on M15), swap costs are negligible. But the 10% of trades held overnight or longer account for 60% of total swap costs.
Accepting Costs as Part of the Game
The 18.3R cost is not a problem. It is a feature of honest accounting. Any strategy that claims zero transaction costs is either paper trading or lying. V7 deliberately targets liquid instruments and liquid sessions to minimize costs, and the -18.3R total reflects this design choice. If V7 traded micro-cap stocks or exotic currency pairs, costs would be multiples higher. The choice to focus on major instruments is partly a cost management decision. S33 quantifies this choice and confirms that the cost structure supports the strategy's edge rather than eroding it.