Brokers

[denaliguide2]

Anyone have a nomination for a good broker??

I am trying to find a reasonably situated brokerage account, with basic commisions in the $10.00 area, without a zillion trades a month, no inactivity fees, and fairly low minimums so I can agily trade some canadian stocks without getting fleeced in the process.

 So I seek:  1/ Low commisions
                 2/ Little or no activity requirements
                 3/ No inactivity fees
                 4/ Low minimum account requirements
                 5/ No research required.
                 6/ Trade executions must be average or better.

  Since my wife and I have a mixed marriage [ 1 Canadian 1 American]  we could use Scottrade, but basically unless its a mixed blessing, since all but dually listed issues requires a broker-assisted trade which is about FOUR times the ONLINE commision, LOL>  Further if we hold Canadian Income Trusts, our yields are reduced due to witholding, sooooo

        I would really, REALLY love to find a canadian broker that charges reasonalbe commisions for online.   They dont have to be as low as Scottrade, but that would be nice, 

        Good Luck to all,  and THANKS IN ADVANCE,

             DG2

[maxwell]

I use TD Waterhouse.

Not sure how many trades you make, but if you 30 trades/quarter, they are are $15.

Otherwise $30

[denaliguide2]

Thanks Maxwell -
 
    Wife banks at CanadaTrust, so TD would be easy.  I simply HATE having to think of that many trades a month.  It seems to me the fewer trades you make the better you are, unless you have a core postion and wanna trade around it.
  Even then, it seems to increase the chance of error.  The only other choice is to make your trades and live with it......LOL

[Tom Swift]

I have been using TradeFreedom for a while. They are a Canadian company and satisfy all of your requirements. They charge $10.31 (includes GST) per trade, no activity requirements, no inactivity fee, instant trade executions, and a low initial deposit. I started an account with less than their recommended inital deposit, in fact. Fast email response and great service.

http://www.tradefreedom.com/en/home/index.asp

[LuckyWon]

This thread is a little old but thought I would reply here anyway.

I have been using Interactive Brokers (IB) in Canada.  I did substantial research on various brokers and believe IB to be the cheapest online broker around.  I was with a broker that was charging from $10 to $25 per trade.  IB's commission are so cheap (a few dollars/trade) that I don't even think about it any more.  They do have a min charge of about $10/mnth.  However that is waived if your commission charges are larger than the $10.  So even with another broker that charges $10 per trade, if you are doing more than 12 trades a year (that is buying or selling) then it is much cheaper to use IB.  An inactive account will cost about $120/yr.  But of you are using the SuperStockPIcker system you will most probably be buying and/or selling more thasn 12 times in a year.

You do need to know what you are doing, as it is all automated, and they will sell positions on you rather than give you a margin call.  And if you purchase a US stock with CDN currency you can be charged interest, because they essentailly are lending you the US dollars.  So it is best to have both a US and CDN account with them.  You have access to trading both US and CDN markets.  However the $10/mnth only gets you real time data for the US markets.

The real time data feed can be used with other free programs like Quote Tracker.

Cheers

[Tom Swift]

Does anyone have any information about offshore brokers? I am currently living out of Canada and am interested in moving my brokerage to an offshore company. I have looked at Internaax and Thales but they are quite expensive. Anyone know of any others?

[owler]

 Hi folk's

I expect for myself to follow the UPMv4 starting this week since i just opened my trading account with CIBC investor's edge. I hesitate between there edge advantage trade package and Questrade Canada. Both brokers have there advantages. On his side, CIBC edge advantage offer me annualy package of 50 trades for 395$ (i.e. 7.90$ per operation). 6.95$ for anything after 50 operations. Questrade give me the choice between a 9.90$ per trades forfeit or a 0.01$ per share minimum 4.95$. The last one is very tempting if orders are for less than 1000 shares per transaction, otherwise CIBC package is cheaper. I'm puzzled.

Any one using one of them here?