Is your brokerage really commission-free? 🤔💡 Thanks to Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), firms like Schwab don't charge you upfront, but there's a catch. When you buy stock, you often pay slightly above market price. Here's why: Market makers bridge the gap between the bid (buy price) and ask (sell price) by purchasing at the bid and selling at the ask, pocketing the difference, like with Apple's stock being bought for $168.41 and sold for $168.44. This small spread, multiplied across many trades, netted Citadel $7.5 billion last year. #InvestingBasics #NoFreeLunch #StockMarket #finlit #financialliteracy#financialfreedom #financialeducation Hoskin Capital is a registered investment adviser. This platform is solely for informational purposes and is not offering advisory services or sales of securities. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal. Comments by viewers and/or recognitions are no guarantee of future investment outcomes and do not ensure that a viewer will experience a higher level of performance or results. Public comments posted on this site are not selected, amended, deleted, or sorted in any way. If applicable, we may edit or delete personally identifiable information, scam/fraud messages, and misinformation