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Ask the Readers: Favorite Discount Brokerage?

Written by FrugalTrader on Jun 24, 2008 filed under Ask the Readers

The Suns Financial Diary posted this question for his readers and I thought that I would ask the same question to my readers.

For those of you with discount brokerage accounts, which one is your favorite? Or, if you only have one, who do you hold your account with and why?

Favorite Discount Brokerage?

Questrade (29%, 57 Votes)
TD Waterhouse (20%, 39 Votes)
E-Trade (12%, 24 Votes)
Interactive Brokers (9%, 18 Votes)
BMO (8%, 15 Votes)
TradeFreedom (7%, 14 Votes)
CIBC (5%, 9 Votes)
Royal Bank (5%, 9 Votes)
Credential Direct (3%, 6 Votes)
Scotia Bank (2%, 4 Votes)

Total Voters: 194

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I personally have multiple discount brokerage accounts as they as have different purposes. When I started investing many years ago, I opened an account with CIBC Investors Edge and still have an account with them. From there, I opened an account with Interactive Brokers to test out my trading skills, then an account with Questrade for cheap RRSP trades. All have strengths and weaknesses depending on the purpose of the account.

We have quite a bit of material on discount brokerages written here, you can find reviews on:

9 Comments, Comment or Ping

1. Al

I do my banking with TD and took the simple route of getting my discount brokerage account with them, so I have no points of comparison. I find the TD system easy to use. I know the commissions are relatively high compared to some, but since I’m a buy and hold guy it doesn’t particularily bother me. I also find some comfort using a big name.

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 9:25 am
2. FrugalTrader

Al, once your account reaches $100k, I believe their trading commission drops to $9.99 which is very competitive.

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 9:35 am
3. Joshua

Why not list Scottrade? They are purely awesome with only $7 trades and the best Customer Support I’ve ever had! Also, I’m investing in a Canadian company and it cost me a little over $20 to do the trade. However, they plan to allow online trading to at least Canada in the near future at the $7 price according to my local broker and that will rock!

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
4. FrugalTrader

Joshua, I only listed discount brokerages that are available to Canadian residents as those are the ones that I’m familiar with. Is Scottrade one of the more popular discount brokerages in the U.S?

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
5. Steve Heath

Well, I went with Qtrade last year after reading all the reviews… in the end I made my choice because I had a few questions and BMO’s discount broker never got back to me wheras Qtrade always answers the phone on the first ring, and has been incredibly helpful. It’s not the cheapest at $19 per trade, but considering I’m a buy and hold kind of guy, the service is definately worth the price.

That said, for my wife’s spousal account I’m thinking of trying another broker (someday I intend to be over a million so may as well split it early), and I’d like to find one that has excellent GIC purchasing capabilities, I’m SOOO tired of having to call my bank manager every time a GIC comes due to get the best rate possible instead of the default offer. Can anyone suggest a good one for that?

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
6. Joshua

Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s available in Canada yet? But it is one of the largest in the US and they rock! I would ass-u-me that it’s coming to Canada and that would be good for y’all.

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
7. Nicolas

One should not forget Disnat although I suspect almost all clients are in Quebec since it’s Desjardins’ service.

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 6:27 pm
8. FrugalTrader

NIcolas, what are the specs on Disnat? Fees/commissions, trading platform? Perhaps you would like to write a review for MDJ? :)

Jun 24th, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
9. slickvguy

This is a strange poll, because it really represents the firm people are using versus their “favorite”. For example, I have accounts with 3 different brokerage houses, and I can discuss the pros and cons of each and which is my favorite - but I could not tell you that I’m using them because they are my favorite as compared to all the others. Follow?

It’s like asking someone which soft drink is their favorite: coke, ginger ale, sprite, orange crush, or root beer. Except if he’s only tasted 1, 2, or 3 of the 5, he really can’t tell you what his “favorite” is. He can only tell you which one he drinks or which one he likes of the ones he has tried.

FWIW, I have not tried Trade Freedom or Questtrade, but I can tell you that all the others leave a lot to be desired. IB is the most sophisticated, and it’s what I use for daily trading, but it has it’s problems too (e.g. no RRSPs, lousy client service,…)

Jun 26th, 2008 @ 12:47 am