Globe and Mail’s Discount Broker Rankings

27 responses so far ↓

• 1 Geoffrey Wiseman // Oct 28, 2008 at 12:32 am

  You’ve got positive things to say about Qtrade, but you’ve not held an account with them — why’s that?

• 2 Traciatim // Oct 28, 2008 at 6:16 am

  I don’t do much trading, but I think ShareOwner Investments is great for a lot of people who are just starting out. Once you get a handle on how things work and have a good chunk of assets you can transfer to a full service broker. If you just want to put money from every paycheck in to a savings account and then twice a year (or whatever timeframe you like) you pick 10-15 stocks that look attractive and make your purchase at $2.40 - $3.60 a stock (depending on the number purchased, over 4 it’s always just 36 bucks an order no matter how many stocks).

• 3 Nurseb911 // Oct 28, 2008 at 7:17 am

  I’m still with TDW and continue to keep my IB account open, but I expect TDW in the future to continue being competitive on the price point with emerging powerhouses on the horizon.

• 4 Canadian Capitalist // Oct 28, 2008 at 9:25 am

  Geoffrey: I was happy with TD Waterhouse and couldn’t resist the 1% deal to switch to RBC. Both TDW and RBC have been sufficient for my purposes and I haven’t seen a pressing need to change.

• 5 Navvy // Oct 28, 2008 at 1:18 pm

  I have a Scotia McLeod and the fees just kill you. I’ve considered switching all my banking over to TD just out of frustration.

• 6 Laura // Oct 28, 2008 at 6:40 pm

  I have a QTrade account and was charged a ‘routing fee’ on an ETF purchase. The fee brought the cost of the trade up to almost $50. I have spoken with QTrade a couple of times and they told me any future purchases would be at the $9.95 level on an exception basis. I am not happy with this state of affairs and will try one more time to get them to compensate me for the additional fee. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has had a similar experience.

• 7 Paulette // Oct 28, 2008 at 9:26 pm

  National Bank charges $28.95/transaction for assets under $250,000, a much higher threshold than its competitors. I hold the kids’ RESP with them but will switch to BMO, where I trade for my own account, as soon as their RESP is launched.

• 8 Canadian Capitalist // Oct 28, 2008 at 9:39 pm

  Navvy: If you are eligible for the $9.99 commission (for households with $100K in assets), Scotia is not the best option out there. Competing brokers may refund the transfer fee (just call and ask in advance). RBC is currently running a promotion (a bonus of 1% of total assets), which you may want to consider.

  Laura: The routing fee sounds ridiculous. I know that E*Trade charges a nominal “SEC fee” but $50 commissions from a discount broker are just ridiculous.

• 9 Bob // Oct 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm

  Hi there!
  I am about to open an DI account in RBC and found this offer. I currently have no investment account in any financial institution.
  Is there any way to open a new account in other institution and than transfer it to RBC in order to get the promotional 1% ?
  How long will it take and which investment company would you suggest?
  Thanks a lot!

• 10 Dave // Oct 29, 2008 at 9:31 pm

  I really wonder why they didn’t include IB in that survey.

  I have an IB account, and nothing in Canada compares to it.

  $1 trades. Had it free 3 years, and never had a problem - ever.

  I would caution beginners on using it because it takes time to get used to it. Also, I hear the customer service is not good, lol, but it doesn’t matter to me because I only contact them by email.

• 11 Dave // Oct 29, 2008 at 9:44 pm

  (correction: “Had it FOR 3 years”, not “Had it free 3 years”

• 12 Canadian Capitalist // Oct 30, 2008 at 7:23 am

  Bob: The 1% bonus offer is available when transferring at least $25K from another brokerage and transferring before Nov. 28. It should be enough to open an account at a competing broker and initiating a transfer but I’d say it’s cutting it close.

  Dave: For some reason, IB is never part of these rankings. I wonder if it’s because they don’t offer RRSP accounts.

• 13 Dave // Oct 30, 2008 at 10:56 am

  Actually Scotia McLeod RAISED their fees recently- eliminating the $3 discount on market orders- they used to be $25.95 but now all trades (market and/or limit orders) are $28.95. Funny thing is part of me doesn’t mind the high fees- it always makes me think twice before buying or selling. Mind you with all the buying I’ve been doing in the past 8 weeks, it’s cost be quite a bit. I’d move my account somewhere else but I think I’d have to liquidate all my positions. No?

• 14 SHAFA // Oct 30, 2008 at 4:52 pm

  I have account with both CredentialDirect and Questrade. I love credential direct except their $19 trading fee. They reply my email always within 24 hours and fund transfer in/out is as fast as 48 hours. I opened a spousal RRSP account under a wrong name and they moved the fund to my new account and waived the annual fee of the wrong one.

  Questrade is kind of disapointing. The worst thing is their speed handling fund transfer. 7-10 business days, they mean it!!!! One transfer cost me 45 days to finish and they have never said any word about that. I hate it and am thinking of leave.

• 15 gene // Oct 31, 2008 at 12:50 pm

  Dave:

  You can transfer assets “in kind” when moving between brokerages. That means they will transfer the securities and cash as it appears in your old account.

  Off the top of my head, there are two pitfalls to doing a transfer between brokerages. The first is that it usually costs about $125 plus GST. Sometimes the receiving institution will cover that expense (charged by your old brokerage), especially if your account is over a certain amount, say $25,000. The second issue is the time it takes. It sometimes takes awhile for the securities to be transferred, though lately it seems it takes only a week or so. During the time that you initiate the transfer and the time it arrives, you generally can’t trade. So, if that bargain comes up in the middle of a transfer, you could miss it.

• 16 Nabloid.com // Oct 31, 2008 at 6:24 pm

  The company I’m with was mentioned in your article, and they still don’t offer very good trading rates. They also don’t have detailed level II quotes. It bugs me.

  I’ve thought of changing, but it’s just easier to stay with my current broker - besides, I’m a fairly long-term investor and don’t plan on trading very much, and the high trading fee helps reinforce it, lol. I still wish L2 quotes were available. TD Waterhouse has a much better system, I’ve seen a friend use it.

  For now, I’ll keep getting screwed with my $29.95 transaction fee. It does hurt, not doubt about it.

• 17 DAvid // Nov 1, 2008 at 10:48 am

  Ummmm….. RBC is offering a 1% bonus to transfer accounts, and has a much lower fee structure that $29.95, and likely handle all the transaction issues surrounding your move. While I agree it’s easier to stay with your current investment company (i.e. doing nothing) it does not appear to be that great an effort to move, and in some instances you get a tidy reward.

  DAvid

• 18 Dave // Nov 1, 2008 at 11:12 am

  Thanks for the feedback DAvid and Gene. I’m going to shop around. While I recognize that Scotia McLeod has every right in the world to maximize revenues, they really should be suffering for not competing against other brokerages. Heck, for not even TRYING to compete!

  Cheers,
  Dave

• 19 Canuck Finances » Blog Archive » Discount Broker // Nov 8, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  [...] for the past couple years. It’s alright. Nothing special. But after reading this recent post, I’m thinking of switching. Does anybody have any experience with Qtrade Investor? They keep [...]

• 20 John Richardson // Nov 26, 2008 at 5:34 pm

  I have looked at these 6 banks.

  Scotia Bank, HSBC, TD Waterhouse, CIBC Investors Edge, RBC Direct Investing, and BMO Investor Line.

  Not sure of what Scotia Bank and HSBC offer.

  - TD Waterhouse offers $100,000 investment and $9.99
  trades and 3 months free commission up to $1500 value=
  150 free trades. Account must have $100,000 on the 4th
  business day of each month to avoid fees.

  - RBC Direct Investing offers $100,000 investment and
  $9.99 trades. Account must have $100,000 at the end of
  each month to avoid fees.

  - BMO Investor Line offers $100,000 investment and $9.99
  trades and $300 credit in cash into your account after 6
  months. Account must have $100,000 to avoid fees.

  - CIBC Investors Edge on $10,000 investment offers a
  package that contains 50 trades that cost $395 during the
  calendar year which is $7.90 per trade and after 50 trades
  $6.90 per trade. Account must have $10,000 value during
  August and September to avoid annual fees. Rest of year you
  can zero in the account.

  Based on these comparisons I feel that CIBC Investors Edge offers me the best deal and the least hassle.

  What do you all think? Please give me your input.

  Thank you

• 21 Greg // Dec 3, 2008 at 10:19 am

  Just finished switching all my RRSPs from Scotia Mcleod and Scotiabank after to TDWaterhouse (ActiveTrader). Scotia Mcleod had an inexcusable internet outage for 4 or 5 hrs of the trading day on Oct 30,2008. After 32 years of doing business with them and paying the very high commission fees, they basically told me to pound sand after I raised the issue. The difference between TD ActiveTrader and Scotia Mcleod trading platform is like night and day. Why didn’t I do this years ago. With the 9.99/trade fees I can play much smaller swings in stock prices.

  Customer Service at TD has be great. Everyone I have spoken to was very knowledgeable and helpful. Although the bar was set pretty low by my experience with Scotia Mcleod’s Customer Service.

• 22 tony // Dec 5, 2008 at 1:53 am

  i am with TD waterhouse (active trader) does anyone find that the system slows even stops working when there is a surge of activity in the markets?I called them many times about this and they act like nothings wrong on there side.Ibought a top of the line computerand high speed internet now, and i still have the same problem. I lost a $1000 today just because i couldn’t get out of a trade today
  because it froze.the other day it also stopped .it has happened
  many imes.Is there a better system out there thats more reliable with $7 commisions? thanks

• 23 spider // Dec 24, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  1) McLeod provides free access to to Financial Post reports. (Much better than TDW crippled access).
  2) TDW has free access to INK research.

  Would like to know how research tools with RCB and CIBC compare. Anybody here can comment?

• 24 Sam // Jan 23, 2009 at 6:03 pm

  I have Telus shares. I left Telus and now they are asking me to move them out. Which broker do you recommend? The shares value is around $3000. Not that much but I do not wanna sell them now. I just need to store them somewhere til the shares go up then sell. I do not intend to make it a profession.

  What about putting them in a TFSA? Please help.

• 25 bman // Feb 12, 2009 at 9:03 pm

  I was thinking of changing from TD to either Qtrade or IB. The main problem I had with TD is they abruptly reduced the margin loan value on my stocks from 70% to 25% even though both stocks were well above 5$. They said something like they had low volume and were volatile even though both had a beta of only around 1.5 and traded more than 2% of the float per day. You can say what you want about bad service and computer glitches but at least Qtrade isn’t arbitrarily droping the margin loan percentage by a huge factor for no particular reason and putting their customers into incredibly difficult margin calls. TD is the worst broker now in my opinion for people that use a margin account. I’m willing to put up with a few computer and service glitches so I won’t be worried about TD pulling the rug out from underneath of you at any moment. For cash or RSP account TD is OK, but I would never invest on margin with them.

• 26 phlypper // Mar 5, 2009 at 7:06 pm

  thinking of moving locked in rrsp to qtrade, want to have more control over my investments. looking at etf and other equities. wondering what experiences others have had and what things to be aware of. perhaps i should consider another brokerage?

  thanks

• 27 wx_junkie // Mar 9, 2009 at 10:12 am

  I’ve been with CIBC Investors Edge since 2000, but did not actively trade / invest until a few years ago.

  Their Edge Advantage package, to which John spoke to in Post #20, is superb. I pay $395 cash in January out of my own pocket . I write this off as an investment expense (not a commission), so I get back about $158 of this. 50 trades - $0 commission. Doesn’t get any more complicated than that. IF I use up all 50, which I don’t, trades are only $6.95 flat commission.

  I’m not sure why CIBC isn’t higher up on the ranks.

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