Standard Bank commision as market maker

[#1]

I am new to futures (trading for around 3 months). Today I shorted MTN at R127.89 and bought back at R125.80. Only did 500 shares - looking at day trading futures. The "nett" profit is 209c. Looking at the transactions after all commission etc my "nett" was on 112c. My question is are all future trading systems like this ? Almost R500 goes to the market maker without looking at the trading costs of R60 per trade.

[CrownA]

Remember STD bank kaps you R80 to buy and R80 to sell, so you need to get R160 at least to break even.

[#3]

Saul, MTN dropped 1.6% between when you opened and closed your short. The gearing on MTN is 5.57, which gives you a 9.1% total profit. On 5 contracts this gives you a rand profit of around R204, less costs of about R136.80 puts about R68 in your pocket. I think that's how it works.

[SimonPB]

R60 + vat on buy and sell and 0.4% of underlying value on buy and sell (the 0.4% is in the spread).