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moneysense.ca, 6/08/07
BMO InvestorLine Review
Reviews of the competition: Questrade, CIBC Investors Edge, Interactive Brokers,
Credential Direct, Qtrade, Questrade, RBC Direct, Scotia Direct and TD Waterhouse.
moneysense.ca, 6/08/07
Great review Phil!
I didn’t realize that Questrade doesn’t handle mutual funds. I was planning to move my LSIFs funds there from TD in order to save on the $50/yr TD charges me. Oh well.
Mike
Hey CC, can you please have a separate category for Online Brokers, like you do for Book Reviews? I think it would be absolutely fantastic to find a place where we can quickly and easily compare online brokers like we do books. Thanks!
Last year I was looking around for a new Online Broker, and for me the best choice was Credential Direct. $19.95 for trades/ $9.95 for active traders (25 trades per quarter). No charge for mutual funds, no yearly administration fees with a balance over $15k. Also free level 2 quotes, stock and mutual fund screener. You can transfer money too and from any bank or credit union account. For me it was an easy choice. I also have a TD Waterhouse account and I would say that Credential Direct is way better. Have a look.
Cheers
Just a small correction, Questrade does offer mutual funds, they just have to be ordered over the phone.
Thanks MDJ – I’ll be doing a T2033 transfer-in for the LSIFs so maybe I’ll give them a call and see what needs to be done.
Mike
Interesting. Questrade’s website makes absolutely no mention of mutual funds. Let me know if they charge a fee for mutual fund service – I’m guessing it might if it involves human interaction.
I did set up my Questrade account for Options, though, which I didn’t do on my BMO Investorline account. Does anyone have experience with Options? I’m thinking about doing an Options straddle on the overall TSX index (say through an ETF of the index), basically buying both a call and a put. In that way, it doesn’t matter which direction the index moves, I’ll be making money on volatility and the market has certainly been full of THAT lately!!!
Sol: Absolutely. I’ll set up a category later today. Thanks!
FT: Thanks for the correction. My account at Questrade just became active, so I’ll let you know how it went. Thanks for the referral.
Phil: I have no experience whatsoever with options. I believe you can also make money on volatility by buying options on the VIX index. Larry MacDonald made a couple of posts on this topic.
To clarify, the commission for a market order is $25.
Hello my name is chris, I recently spoke to a friend , he advised me to look into penny stocks with bmo. now my question is how and where would one begin to invest in this type of investing? how much cash is the start up and how much would it be to maintain?
thanks in advance
chris
Another heads up about BMO investorline, they offer $9.95 trades for household assets above $100k. Basically the same deal as TD Waterhouse.
Chris, if you’re new to investing, STAY AWAY FROM PENNY STOCKS or you WILL lose your shirt. You need experience to trade them as they are very volatile and have a level of risk reserved for seasoned investors with the knowledge of short selling etc…
BMO I would not give them my trust to invest my money since their advisers don’t know anything about investments they just follow orders. As well, you need to read the fine print and don’t trust a word they say. Their hidden fees and early withdraw fees are very high compared to the other major banks (about 10% of your investment for paybacks). Anyway as a simply trading house their ok, but their are cheaper alternitives like etrade.
Just got this reply from BMO when I asked them about wash trades and US Cash in RRSP Accounts:
“There is a long term plan to allow US$ cash in RRSP accounts. Unfortunately I can not provide a time frame as to when this will be offered. We do allow FX washes for stock trades in RRSP accounts. To arrange this please contact a BMO Investorline Representative during trading hours. A BMO InvestorLine Representative is available at 1-888-776-6886. The best time to call us would be right after both orders have been filled.”
I’m not impress with the fees, service, and platform. Beside the transaction fees, you need to pay maintenance fees for tax free savings account investorline. The maintenance fees costs $50 per year. We already pay for transaction fees. Now, we have to pay maintenance fees. Come on, the $50 can easily eat up a big chunk of the whole year Term, and GIC interest. Plus, the $29 minimum per trade is hefty. Too hard to swallow. I’m going to switch to Scotia Itrade.
Has anyone heard of any negative info about Credential Direct? According to their website the have won awards for being #1 four years in a row.
Questrade is the absolute worst Online Brokerage in Canada. Their web site is continually down, their client service is terrible, they don’t answer the phone.
There has to be a way to shut them down. You may save a couple bucks on a trade, but you will lose in the long term when you have 5000 shares go against you and you are unable to sell your position, or you have nice win, and you cannot sell because there server is down AGAIN.
Words cannot express what a discrace this company is.
As a BMO Bank of Montreal employee, I may be biased, but I wanted to point out that BMO InvestorLine has finally done away with the $50.00 yearly fee for TFSA. There is no minimum balance required. Here is the current fee schedule: https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/Commissions/FeesBrochureTFSA_March.pdf
I’ve been an Investorline user for 12 years and an Active Trader for over a year, currently making over 100 trades a month. My frustration with Investorline is skyrocketing. If you trade penny stocks, run, don’t walk from Investorline. This platform can not accurately record half penny prices. Their third-party Streamer, is buggy and amateurish, and can not record half penny stock prices. I have written repeatedly over the past year and, not only have they done nothing about it, they always make it sound like it’s the first time they’ve heard about it.
I was quite surprised to read the original review of Investorline comments that staff were prompt, knowledgeable and had the authority and technical no how to fix problems. My experience has been exactly the opposite. They have a few employees that might fit this bill, but 90% of my experience has been NO, or NO we can’t do that, or NO we won’t do that; but we will refer your comments to our black hole that no one in our organization ever considers or looks at (last part is obviously my thoughts and not their comments). The one thing I can say is they are always very polite when they are saying NO.
I used Investorline & TDW for many years, finally became frustrated with BMO and decided to try Scotia iTrade discount brokerage. I cannot begin to tell you what a horrible mistake that was, but who was to know? Please take my advice and avoid Scotia. I do not believe everyone will have the same horrible experience, but why take a chance???
Scotia is the brokerage from hell. Data is frequently lousy, glitchy, customer service is NOT knowledgeable (high turn-over?). Reported issues & discrepancies went unfixed for the whole time I was with them (>year). Quotes not updated for many stocks. I used comparitive quotes from other sources and found Scotia fails in a major way. DO NOT TRUST THEIR DATA! Calling customer service was a dead end, a vast black hole of wasted time. Their promises usually fell through. But that is the least of it though.
DO NOT SHORT STOCKS WITH SCOTIA!!!! A former employee told me he knew of instances where they take shares from the discount clients (many times forcing a loss) and gave to their brokerage clients when the brokerage clients demand them (IE not triggered by margin or otherwise), and then lied to their discount clients. Certainly unethical, but isn’t this criminal??? What other atrocities do they commit?
If you ever get into a tough predicament, as it seems you will with most on-line brokerages judging by all the reviews I have read, I can tell you first-hand that Scotia is the worst I have experienced and heard of and can possibly imagine, and I feel BMO seemed at least much more ethical and for the most part fair. I am still searching for a better brokerage though.
(PS I used TDW sparingly so I cannot comment too much on them, but they seem to be at roughly the same level as BMO).
The differences in the various online brokerages seem marginal except for the higher than average trading fee. One thing about switching sites is the time that it takes to become familiar with the new site. Each has their own idiosyncrasies which become more difficult to understand and work with as one gets older. Despite the odd bump in BMO’s Investorline road, I intend to stick with them.
RAD
[...] InvestorLine (read review here) will soon allow clients to segregate their Canadian and US Dollar holdings in registered accounts [...]
[...] doesn’t get a spotless review from all investors, either. First of all, their near $30 fee for the first 1,000 interactions [...]
Dear BMO:
I have been trying for twenty minutes to log inot my account.
No success.
Why do you hide the sign in page among so much other stuff?
Regards, Bill
Anyone tried CIBC investors edge? I am thinking about to open an account from them . Are they good?
Thx
I have both BMO Investorline and CIBC Investor’s Edge accounts, 15 years with the former and one year with the latter. I am a long term conservative investor with a few trades every week. I am currently searching for another discount broker, need I say more?
BMO – always polite, but I lost trust in them. They lost my transfer form containing sensitive info. Sometimes they don’t credit dividends so you have to watch out, and they mail T-slips very late, often way past the tax deadline.
CIBC – lack manners. Unstable website, frequently out of order around 10:30 am, or would act up in the most random way. The trade entry is horridly designed. A nightmare interface, not user friendly and frustrating to use. They confuse user ID with account number which is pathetic.
So I am currently exploring Disnat. Anyone have an opinion on them?