I never had a problem with using limit orders through questrade's auto route (market maker or a box I think), but I do find it a little slow. The auto route has very sloppy market orders and stop market orders, the fills can be a joke in a volatile market, but the stop market orders are still an essential tool. Unless you remove liquidity with alot of large limit orders, Instinet or ARCA will always beat questrade's auto route hands down in every aspect.
Questradeâs Incompetence causes financial loss for investor Late June 26 2008 I funded a Questrade account after extensively familiarizing myself with the Questrader Pro demo as well as consulting with ânew customer serviceâ when questions arose. Starting to trade on July 1.08, using the Life Questrade Pro Platform, I executed more than 100 trades as a day trader / swing trader to date. In absence of a comprehensive Questrade manual showing rules and regulations pertaining to its policies and trading platform, calls to customer service were needed to clarify discrepancies inherent in the life versus the demo platform. Unfortunately, I received as many contradicting information as there were agents I spoke with; requiring additional calls asking for verification from a supervisor. Andrew has to be mentioned as most professional, helpful, willing, competent and customer service oriented . Nonetheless, reaching the âlifeâ customer service department involved extensive waiting periods and when finally connected the respective, presumably knowledgeable âlife account holder agentâ often needed to consult someone else to get an answer to the question; i.e. clarifying after hours trading to execute an order set off many contradicting instructions by Wes, Wen, Wendy, Ricki and Karan Mahotra whereby the latter fortunately does chose to get help instead of spouting unqualified misinformation which fails when followed. Some of the issues are the number of decimals allowed to enter, excessively long time lapses to fill market orders despite direct access, limit orders do rarely appear on level 2 queue view, commission amounts charged are shown at 2x the amount incurred, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. and on and on. Aside from these shortcomings, one is hopeful will iron itself out after learning Questradeâs intricacies in the most inefficient manner, Questradeâs ineptitude and lack of concern for the client does also prompt a heavy monetary loss to the user of Questrade as shown below: On July 22.08 I closed one of several same symbol long positions which were accumulated over several days. The trading platform however, closed a position other than the one selected by me which had shown a gain when closed out at that time. Instead a significant loss occurred when the system chose a different position of the same symbol acquired at a different price than the one I had selected. I called Questrade immediately following the incident. After 15 minutes on hold, I was informed by Ilia?, / Elia? that Questradeâs policy does not allow for account holder selection of positions to be closed out of multiple same symbol positions, but the system selects automatically the first in first out position if several positions have been accumulated over several days. Conversely, if all of several same symbol positions are accumulated during the same day , the last position acquired is the first one out upon closing/covering one of the positions held. I accepted that information as a lesson learned, after confirming that I had not overlooked that crucial information in Questradeâs 70 page info/disclaimer material. Instead I was advised by Ilia/Elia? that it was my responsibility to call in for obtaining such information prior to doing the trade because Questrade is a discount broker. With this information in mind, on July 29, 2008 at 14.08 hours, I covered that dayâs last acquired position held as one of several same symbol positions acquired during the morning of July 29.08. That particular position showed a gain of $148.73 . This gain, added to a $557.23 gain closed earlier that morning in other symbolsâ positions, would result in a total gain of $705.96 before commissions. Instead, the arbitrary Questrade system selection presented me with a loss of $254.11 because the trading platform system covered a different position which was not the last position opened and thus had a different price and therefore was creating a loss. Consequently, my gain for the day to 14:09:36 hours was reduced from the earlier gained $557.23 to $303.12. In addition, my unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue in several phone calls to customer service resulted in repeated disconnections, more than 13 minutes waiting periods on hold and refusal by agent Ilia to connect me to a supervisor. Instead, rude, rushed and unfriendly, he tried to convince me that only a paper, but no real loss had occurred. He assured me he had now adjusted the account to eliminate the loss occurred. When I asked him how the result is shown so that I can see it in my trading account, he answered that he is not an IT programmer and thus, does not know how the computer did it. I was/am unable to detect any changes made, my losses remain the same as prior to my call to Questrade and are reflected at closing of the markets. Brad, agent at the trade desk, and later agent Karan, assured me the account would be adjusted at end of the trading day because current attempts made by them failed for technical reasons unbeknownst to them. During my 1 and ¾ hours occupied with the phone ordeal and frustration, my other positions could not be closed out at 14:15 hours which would have resulted in a small gain; instead, an additional loss of $ 1120.57 occurred for a total loss of a minimum of $1374.68 at the end of the trading day. Furthermore, the unresolved issue prevented me from re-acting to market performance during the remaining 1 ½ hours of trading, disabling the opportunity to re-gain some of the previous weeksâ losses. Questadeâs agents remarked they are very sorry about what happened. I requested several times to be connected to a manager or supervisor and asked for a call back, I AM STILL WAITING TO BE CONTACTED. Related documentation is available.
"Related documentation is available." No thanks. Please dont transfer to my broker and waste their time.
Wow, sounds like lots of problems wit QuestTrade, I'm looking at QuestTrade as an option for an RRSP acccount. Lots of potential advantages: No yearly fee, and being able to hold USD in an RRSP are the eye poppers to me... Can someone else claim Quest Trade is a good option, and if not, what other option do we have? Etrade Canada????
Few discount brokers allow you to choose the lots you want to close. Fidelity and E*Trade do. For others, I believe you need to call them and email them a written statement about which lot you just traded. This is mostly useful for tax purposes. If your only quibble is that the display of realized profit/loss on your trading platform is inaccurate, I think that's a relatively minor issue that can be solved by your keeping track of profit/loss on your own.