Comments on: Canadian Online Discount Stock Brokerage Comparison

By: Jay

Jay — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:49:07 +0000

I am a non-resident of Canada, and living in Singapore. I am not a US cetizen.

I would like to open a share trading account with a online brokerage from Canada. I defintely don’t like Questrade.

Can anyone help whether any brokerage will open an account for a non-resident?

Thanks for your ATTENTION and help

Jay

By: JM

JM — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:35:33 +0000

Do not open an account with iTrade. It has been a month and they still have not been able to open an on-line account for me, due to their incompetent staff. Their customer service phone line is always busy, and you are on hold forever. Be warned, iTrade is the worse.

By: dealSeeker

dealSeeker — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:23:38 +0000

I am looking for a good and cheaper discount broker too. But definately I will not choice Questrade. There are so many complaints from Questrade clients. Questrade does not treat its client well and so many people switched out. You better read customer comments before you open an account with them.

By: Hussein

Hussein — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:20:54 +0000

Just read the TD Waterhouse fees for 2010, which come into effect March 15th, and I’m not pleased. trades will now cost a minimum of $43, and there is significant upside on them depending on stock price and lot size. No longer qualifies as a ‘discount brokerage’ for me. I’m back in the market for a new provider, and will likely switch my TFSA over before the fees come in to effect. Not a heavy trader, just trying to direct my own tax free savings. Will likely go with Questrade unless I hear of another low-priced competitor with fewer complaints on this site and others…

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:15:25 +0000

Does anyone have a US brokerage account. I have one with first trade but they are telling me that i have to close it because i’m not a US resident?? I have had it for 10 years.
Does anyone know of any brokers that are accepting non resident accounts??
Any help would be great!!!

By: Jeach!

Jeach! — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:28:08 +0000

I just wanted to point out that I saw a yearly brokerage review/report in the Globe & Mail recently and discovered something amazing (well at least for me).

I’ve been trading the international market a lot more recently but only by means of ETF because our banks thinks those markets are not important and don’t offer them to us.

The only one for which offers anything but the North American markets are Interactive Brokers. But for one, they don’t offer RRSP or TFSA accounts and their customer service support doesn’t seem too great either.

But none-the-less, I found out that HSBC offers many European and Asian exchanges (direct and non-direct). And you can also have RRSP and TSFA accounts to do this too.

They may not be too competitive in price and support but at least one bank (non-Canadian) offers it.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:51:04 +0000

i have read thru the majority of these posts and they are totally helpful.
i’ve been watchin the market for about 7 years, basically since i was in skool. i finally pulled the trigger on the market back in august. i used tdw. man they are pricey, i’m talkin about the 29 per trade deally. i guess its not too bad if you have tons of coin in the market but I don’t. I recently called CIBC investors edge from what i understand they make you buy a pkg of 12 trades. the cost of this pkg is 99 beans. it works out to 7.90 per trade. thats a far cry from 29.i’m thinking of going that way, hell it would save me tons of quon. i figured out i spent 800 quon in commissions btw aug and sept. with IE i figured out i woulda spent 200… thats a rediculous difference. any one tried IE? what do you think ? i also thought of different stradegies i might have employed with cheaper commissions. i think i really blew a wheel by not doing my due dillegence when it came to brokers … and trading stradegies. does any one have any trading stradegies they would like to share ?

By: John Neufeld

John Neufeld — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:12:19 +0000

I have just received several “Pink Sheet” share certificates. Does anyone know a broker in Canada that will accept these? I must have contacted at least 20 brokers and no one accepts them.

By: Zig

Zig — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:05:32 +0000

Just an update to my issue with purchasing a US equity through my TFSA. I tried again today to purchase a US equity with my TFSA, after the market opened, but still an error message displayed as TFSA ineligible. I called Credential Direct and they stated that AMTY, the stock I was buying, was an over-the-counter(OTC) stock and as per CDN Govt rules, could not be purchased with a TFSA.

This seemed a little odd to me as it is listed with NASDAQ — I am not quite sure what identifies it as OTC — I wish I had asked, but I was not near a computer at the time of the call.

By: FrugalTrader

FrugalTrader — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:24:41 +0000

Zig, when you tried to purchase these stocks, was it after hours? Some brokerages won’t allow after hours trading. Otherwise, US equities are allowed in a TFSA.

By: Zig

Zig — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:18:42 +0000

Thanks for the quick answer.
Another quick question. I emailed(after business hours) Credential Direct on this, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to post the question here to see if anyone might know the answer.

I finally tried to purchase some U.S. stocks (AMTY) with my TFSA account, but the trade request was denied stating that these stocks were not eligible for purchase under a TFSA account. Is this due to the stocks being in U.S funds? Is anyone familiar with Credential Direct or is this a TFSA issue?

By: FrugalTrader

FrugalTrader — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:11:40 +0000

Zig, yes, the cost of commission is added to the cost of purchasing. So basically, if it costs $20/trade, and you purchase 10 shares @$10, then it would cost $120 for the trade.

By: Zig

Zig — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:08:39 +0000

Hi all.

I visit theis site frequently, but rarely post. I love the site. I have a question that I hope someone can help with. I am just getting started investing my TFSA, using Credential Direct. I am only starting with $1,000 to get the hang of online trading, before putting more money into it.

I have a question about the fees for online trading. How are they paid? Say, I have $1,000 in my TFSA account and want to invest $900, leaving $100 in my account. Then, the fee for the transaction is $19.95 — does that get deducted from the same account leaving a total of $80.05(ignoring taxes, etc) in the account?

I have searched the site and am not sure how the fees and commissions are paid?

By: Ray @ Financial Highway

Ray @ Financial Highway — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:37:42 +0000

@ Rick with over 10Million i suggest you find a great Portfolio Manager and a CPA accountant.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:35:12 +0000

what is the safest way to invest/secure large amounts of money- Talking over $10,000,000.00
Please advise

By: May

May — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:44:09 +0000

I have very bad experience with questrade and look for a good canadian discount broker. I would like to read other people’s opinions to find a good one.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:30:07 +0000

Hi,

I want to open up a Interactive Broker account to do some day trading possibly. I am planning to invest 10K to open up the account, maybe withdraw 5k back once the account is open and do my trading with 5K. Should I be aware of anything with Interacive broker? Anything funny? Secondly does anyone know if 25K minimum limit also applies for trading in canadian exchanges for day trading. Finally if anyone is already doing day trading, how do you report income from dividend, capital gains?

Thanks in advance.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:51:15 +0000

Is there a CANADIAN broker that supports ALL the below:

1)TFSA

2)Contingency Orders: ie if stock price A goes up $3, buy a CALL option, if it goes down $3, buy a PUT option.

3) Access to US and Canadian Markets

4) Fees in Canadian Dollars!

I could live with just the first 3!

OptionsXpress.ca has a great platform that supports contingent orders BUT no TFSA, NO Canadian markets and Fees in $USD.

All the other american sites masquerading as canadian ones are same NO TFSA or $CDN Fees and many with no CDN market acccess!

I have yet to find any brokers that do TFSA and contingent orders please help!

CdnTraderGuy

By: Micki

Micki — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:34:52 +0000

Hi,

Does anybody deal with Disnat? They seem to have $5/trade >$10 000, which seems to rival all the best cheapy ones ($30/trade<$10 000 though). They also have TFSA’s and RRSP’s. I’m thinking of opening up with them, but really can’t find much info on them online, other than their own website…

Thanks!
Julie

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:42:18 +0000

Last winter I investigated all the online brokerages, and decided to go with Qtrade also. I was a trading beginner, and also find that their help is very, very good. at first I was intimidated to even ask questions, but now I call anytime. They have been great.

I now have over 100K so got my commissions reduced greatly. I have moved all my “remote” (as in scatterd) RRSPs and cash accounts to Qtrade, so to make my investments more manageable. They will cover transfer fees up to $125 per account that is over $25K.