Comments on: Survey on Canadian Online Discount Brokers

By: discount broker

discount broker — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:27:21 +0000

Lower service charges might tempt you but there are some other things which you should consider before selecting your discount broker. Check out the advantages, they will charge you lower service cost and they never force you to buy any particular product. There are some disadvantage also such as, they will never advice you for any product, they are unable to give you quality customer service. There are some other things like commission rate,etc. For more details on discount broker refer http://www.prime-targeting.com/things-you-should-look-for-in-your-discount-broker/

By: Elissar Toufaily

Elissar Toufaily — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:52:14 +0000

Many Thanks Divident Guy for the mention!

By: Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup - May 23, 2009 | The Dividend Guy Blog

Weekly Dividend Investing Roundup - May 23, 2009 | The Dividend Guy Blog — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:01:57 +0000

[...] Survey on Canadian Online Discount Brokers [...]

By: Elissar Toufaily

Elissar Toufaily — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:06:01 +0000

@Nicolas Thank you very much Nicolas for your participation.
Hopefully that after finishing tha data-gathering, data cleansing, and all these things, I can work like 2 to 3 months to analyse, synthesize and publish some primary comparative results.

In one day, we had almost like 20% of the rate of response necesserary.. Please continue to complete this survey.

Thank you CanadianCapitalist

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:09:04 +0000

@Nicolas: We don’t want to run afoul of the language police I’ve updated the post to reflect the correct spelling. I think I can guess which firm you are referring to. I have some experience with them as well!

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:46:10 +0000

A pleasant survey if I may say so. I can finally express the practical aspect of a certain firm which also has horrible service.

Can’t wait to read the results? how many years?

PS: Just because I also went to UQAM, the English name of the institution (to my recollection) is not “at Mtl” but remains “à Mtl”. ;-p

By: Elissar Toufaily

Elissar Toufaily — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:24:55 +0000

Please note that the more I have repondents who complete the questionnaire, the greater is the likelihood to obtain reliable and valid results, to compare between pure dotcom brokers with brick and click brokers.

All your feedbacks are also welcomed to enhance the survey!

Elissar

By: Elissar Toufaily

Elissar Toufaily — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:37:58 +0000

Jerry Hung, I am sorry for the inconvenience. I was introducing some of your interesting comments in the survey, maybe at the same time you were answering. You can try again, you won’t have any problem for sure. thank you for your patience.

@Jon, it’s very important what you are saying. Like Candadiancapitalist said, it’s the assessment of the ENTIRE online presence with the broker.. it’s all the experience that is evaluated.. Your comment by email has been introduced to the survey.

@Phil and all those who are sending me emails to ask me if I will publish the results. Of course, like I promised CanadianCapitalist, a report of the results will be published on this blog.. It will be interesting to know how investors evaluate their online brokers and what is the root of investor loyalty (brand, prices, realtime cotes, etcc)

Thank you everybody for your help.. please continue to complete this survey.

Elissar

By: Phil S

Phil S — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:12:54 +0000

@CC. Oops, I just noticed that I didn’t really answer your question. All GICs can be both bought and redeemed (if you buy the cashable option) online from the web interface. They give comparisons of all of the interest rates on the same page that makes it easy to compare between the various issuers, so you can look at them all on the same menu before you choose whose to buy.

By: Phil S

Phil S — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:08:00 +0000

@CC. BMO Investorline is wonderful for GICs. They of course offer BMO’s GICs under the brand name AAT (Advisor’s Advantage Trust), but they also offer those of the competition, including the likes of TD Mortgage, Equitable, Home Capital Group, Canadian Western Bank, etc. Usually the non-AAT GICs have higher rates, but not as many of them offer a cashable option – in fact, I think the only non-BMO issuer which has a cashable option available to me is TD Mortgage in Investorline’s offerings.

These days GIC returns look rather ugly. In order to get a 3% return, I have to go way out to a 5-yr term. There is of course more risk to go to corporate bonds, but it is still possible to buy relatively short term (<5 yrs) debt from the Big 5 banks for around 4% (I recently bought some CIBC called bonds for 2013 at 4.05%).

To date, I still haven’t been adventurous enough to buy any corporates outside of the Big 5 banks. But if I were to do so, Transcanada Pipelines, BCE and Loblaws are offering relatively good value (compared to Government of Canada or the Provincials) on the debt market these days. The spread between the Big 5 banks and the Government bonds really aren’t that large (1% or less), which means that most investors think the Big Banks are nearly as good as government debt.

As you can probably surmise from my comments, inside my RSP account, I’m HUGE into bonds and GICs. I just love ‘em for my RSP account. I just wish there was more disclosure on how Investorline is raking me over the coals for in terms of fees…