This has been an interesting discussion, however the situation is unresolved as yet. There appears to have been some sort of crackdown recently that has resulted in most American direct access firms no longer accepting Canadian clients. There appear to be only a couple of Canadian direct access firms, and these have had a less than enthusiastic endorsement on this forum. So my question is, what is the best course of action for a Canadian looking for an economical online broker, and realtime quotes and charts? I currently have an account at TD Waterhouse. Did you know that at TD you cannot place an online short sale? You have to phone them in, and pay Full Retail commissions! It's time to get out of the dark ages. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
I havent had the time or courtesy (since it doesnt affect me ) to read through all the pages of this thread so I may be laughed at for my ignorance or whatever but has anyone of you considered the following : Finding a trustworthy friend/relative who lives abroad (i.e. not in Canada) and having him open an acct at IB but you change the pass and e mail so he cant access your money? Then you simply set up your baking standing instructions OR request cheques in your name3 so basically you are tradiung your money, you have complete control over it AND you dont pay taxes. OK you may have to pay your friends tax but if he happens to live in Croatia... he he now thats a thought? I may open my firm for canadian customers and charge saaaay 50$? one time fee to use my name and info for opening an acct he he he he Now I aint saying that you "cheat" the law you wouldnt wanna do that now would you?! Alex P.S.Theres this great show called Royal Canadian Air Farce here in Cro, anyone seen it?
Hrifraf Your first course of action should be to write to your provincial securities regulator, with a copy to your provicial finance minister demanding to know why they are obstructing the registration of Interactive Brokers in Canada. Secondly you should make a submission to the BC Securities Commission on the their discussion paper on deregulation, supporting the principle they are proposing that Canadian regulators have no business interfering with Canadians who wish to do business outside the country. My submission has already gone. None of the other conventional Canadian discount brokers will be any better than TD, so that leaves Tradequest with their $7 minimum fee as perhaps the best option. However, they have the $1500 training fee, so basically we are screwed in Canada. The way this country is being run, we might be better off if, instead of using Neo as an alias, we were to move to Croatia. Cost of living is cheap, a villa on the Adriatic would be nice, there is great skiing and I suspect the authorities have too many other things to worry about to trace your off-shore investment account that you establish before you move there. Neo, perhaps the Royal Canadian Air Farce is fairly new in Croatia, but it has been on the TV here for 30+ years and after that time it becomes very predictable. Yet another example of our institutions failing to adapt to the times.
Gentlemen, we have a winner! True Duff, also Air farce has been here some say 10ish years but I was just a kid back then so I didnt really get all those jokes Alex
hrifraf, Did you ever get an answer to your question: "So my question is, what is the best course of action for a Canadian looking for an economical online broker, and realtime quotes and charts?" Any other Canadians have a good trading setup they are happy with? How about IB Canada for orders combined with another realtime quote/charting software?
You want some advice? Stay away from Swift Trade. Check out a previous thread started I believe by frmrretail guy (?). Anyways, yeah, retail or prop, you cant lose by avoiding it.
django, This thread is obviously very old. The last post before yours goes back to Mar. 2001. Many things have changed since then. Questrade now has an online division that features software powered by CyberTrader. There is no longer a requirement to take the software course or the $25,000 minimum for clients of the online division.
Stick with IB. The rest of these Canadian outfits are tiny and/or franchises operations of U.S. operations with much higher fees and much less capital.
They now have a school in Montreal and some sort of b/d set up that enables Canadians to trade using Realtick. I believe the Canadian affiliate has some sort of subclearing agreement with Terra Nova or something like that. www.marketwise.com will get you the link to the Canadian entity.
My listing for Canadian Direct Access Brokers is: Interactive Brokers (IB Canada) QuestTrade (CyberTrader) Jitney (Terra-Nova - RT3) TradeFreedom Broadway (Mtl) Bright Office(Vancouver/Toronto?) Swift Trade