I want to start a more active trading account that would include some day trading, swings and overnights and prefer to deal with a Canadian company (I think?) to avoid exchange rate and tax implications at present level of activity. Does anyone have advise on a good company at good prices? One recommendation I have received was to use Trade Freedom but note only one review posted - and it was negative! All comments would be appreciated.
About Cnd brokers just check this thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24909 and this thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25044&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
My choice is www.interactivebrokers.ca . There are others, QuestTrade, Trade Freedom to name a couple. I use IB. If you are daytrading make sure your account is over 25000 US or you will be subject to the pattern day trading rules the US Securites and Exchange Commission has put in place, even if you deal with a Canadaian broker. Delaing with a Canadian broker or any other broker will not affect your tax status, you will still be liable for Capital Gains taxes to the Canadain Government if you win. If you plan to trade mostly US stocks open your account in US dollars, that way you just do the currency conversion when you deposit money into the account and later if you withdraw it and need to go back to Canadian dollars. I know I took a beating on this. When I deposited funds to IB the C$ was at about 0.66 and when I took some out the C$ was at 0.77. I still did well overall though but the amount of money was small. If you plan to start with 50000 or more (cdn or US) you could hedge your currency risk using a mini canadian dollar futures contract or by opening a currency account at a place like FXCM.com and buying your account value in canadain dollars vs US dollars. This would cancel out yor currency exposure.
BTW, IB plan to offer Forex in few months, this could help you to eliminate alternate Forex brokers as FXCM if you want.
Not supposed to open account for Canadian without a regulation violation following an agreement between Canada and USA.
Since we have 'Ameritrade Canada', I was hoping to find FreeTrade by Ameritrade Canada. Thank's anyway.
Yep we have Ameritrade Canada, but but unfortunately the authorization don't follow automatically for affiliation. Another example is TS which is allowed to offer Futures but not the option or stock! Very unpleasant restriction ...
Because of these stupid canadian regulations, sometimes I feel like we live in the 3rd world country. Don't we?