There are NO brokers or prop firms in the US charging $1 ticket, 100% payouts. Not anywhere even close to that. I offer the disclaimer that I am not an employee of Quest, and have no direct financial interest in their success. But honestly, 1. $25 per stock fee every day - better than $1000 in commissions 2. You pay 7% GST on all your profits - everybody pays taxes, my understanding some of this can be deductable. 3. NYSE trades are 1/2 cent per share extra - Leave the NYSE trading to those who really make the $ there, the specialists! 4. Some of the ECN pass-throughs are marked up - The rates that they charge for INCA, ISLD, ARCA are the same that the ECNs charge/rebate. NO Markup! 5. You must make a subordinated loan to open an account and your funds are not covered by CIPF - Prop firm funds not guaranteed either. You want a guarantee? trade retail. 6. Seat fees - Understandable, they don't need you sitting there using their bandwidth for free of you are not trading. Very common in almost all prop firms. This waived pretty easily. 7. $5 per day admin. fee - Give me a break! Better than an extra $800/day in comms. 8. CyberTrader and Laser are average platforms at best - Matter of opinion. What is an above average platform. 9. No overnight positions - That's why they call it DAYtrading! 10. Professional margin??? - Finally a legitimate concern!
Here is the run down on Canadian trading shops. Swift, Quest, and almost all other Canadian daytrading firms must clear through Penson Canada and also have a US clearing relationship (e.g Penson US, CCS, SouthWest, etc.). This is the only way to legally offer traders in Canada direct access to the US markets. So the traders ends up paying for clearing at Penson Canada and Clearing at the US firm. Plus the daytrading firm needs to push up these costs to make money. Plus you have software costs on top of this unless they have a deal with the US clearing firm for free software (e.g. Redi) The main reason why Canadian's get screwed is that all of the Big Banks (TD, Royal, etc) have great lobbyist. The want to keep charging their clients $25-35US per 1000 to trade the US markets which is 2-3 times the going rate in the US. So the Banks get the Canadian regulators to make all US firms clear through a Canadian clearing firm to offer trading to Canadians. Of course Penson Canada is presently the only one that offers this type of direct access clearing. This of course can't last forever for the time being the Canadian's will continue to get screwed on commissions as the major banks make record profits each year. As for Quest - Penson Canada charges these Canadian trading firms several different way. This includes per name per side per day, cents per share and flat rates. I don't want to give away the rates but lets just say that Quest is upcharging this per name, per day, per side in a big way. Hopefully this clears up the lay of the land in Canada for some people.
bigscalper, Name one JUST ONE prop firm in the US that charges $1 per ticket and gives 100% payout. You cannot, and neither can anyone else because it DOES NOT exist. As far as $1.30 per thousand shares, even with the $25 per side fee this is ridiculously lower than any deal anywhere when you are talking about 100% payout. Who cares what Quest's markup is, this is an incredibly low commission deal. Granted you are better off trading just a few stocks to keep down that per side fee.
esc_trader did a good job of explaining our position. Just a few items need clarification. Once again I have no idea who esc_trader is and I just want to make it clear that esc_trader is not an employee and has no financial interest in Questrade. 1. The $25/stock/side/day fee. The offer that is posted is aimed at rebate traders. As the site says, this is a sample of what we have to offer. A deal should and will be structured depending on the traders style and strategy. If someone wants to jump around from stock to stock then we can look at a different fee structure. If a group of traders wanted to trade under this deal then the $25 fee would be spread over the entire group, not each trader. This is another way of lowering the per stock fee. 2. GST on profits. GST can be deducted from personal taxes as an expense. Having said that, we do not offer tax advice. Traders should consult with their accountant for certainty. 3. NYSE trades. As I have said before, we will structure a deal depending on the traders style and strategy taking their volume into account. If a trader wants to trade NYSE in volume we can accommodate this for a low cost. 4. ECN fees. Under the posted deal we do not mark up ECN fees. They are passed through at cost and rebates are provided as received. 5. CIPF. Well put by esc_trader. If you want CIPF coverage we can offer a retail account. 6. Seat fees. Also well said by esc_trader. That's exactly the point. If you trade you don't pay. 7. There are admin costs related to internal accounting for each prop trader. This charge is just to make it clear that if a group of traders decided to take up our offer there would be a charge per trader. There is a lot of management time that goes into organizing this. 8. Trading platform. We are obviously biased, so judge for yourself but thousands choose to trade retail on CyberTrader for a reason. As for Laser, there are hundreds of millions of shares being traded on this platform every month with few complaints. 9. No overnight positions If you want to take overnights, there is a different deal we can work out. It all depends on what you want to do... 10. Professional margin Canadian margin rules allow for a maximum of 4:1 margin on eligible stocks. For margin to be provided over and above this it would have to be provided by the firm. This would obviouslu increase our risk and exposure to possible losses. With the fees we are charging under the offer on our site together with the 100% payout it does not make sense. If greater than 4:1 BP is needed that is something we can discuss on an individual basis. One last word on markups and profit. We are a business. That is what we do. If we give a 100% payout how else are we to cover our expenses? I don't feel a particular need to justify our pricing, they are already the lowest in Canada and among the lowest in the industry for the services we provide.
This whole subject area is obviously a hot one. Funny how everyone seems to have some kind of bias toward one firm or another. I guess that is because everyone wants to think that the choice that they make is some how the smartest and that their choice some how reflects their IQ or their trading abilities. I don't think that there is any question that one deal can be perfect for everyone and every style. It seems to me that this is why there are different deals out there. The deal offered by Questrade is certainly not going to suit every trader, and as has been stated it is not designed to suit every trader. Sure some of the elements of the deal may not suit some people, but for a trader or group of traders that have their own capital to trade, trade a high volume style and trade only a couple of Naz. stocks per day this deal appears attractive.
Questrade has been around for roughly two years... they don't have any consistently profitable traders... this is all the proof one needs. If this deal works out and you guys are able to secure some consistent $1000/day traders then come back and post up the evidence... as of now the proof is in the pudding... rebate traders are better off at Swift Trade where they don't have to put up capital, don't have to pay commission and atleast can consistently make a risk-free salary of $5-10K a month.
Questrade has been a member of the IDA since April 2001. A variation of this deal has been offered on a limited basis to a handful of traders for about three months up until now. There have been a few traders that have been successful at it for a short period. This is the first time we are offering such low rates with 100% payout. We have never offered this deal before and therefore we don't know how successful one will be under this deal. But if you do the math and you can manage to make just 3/10 of one penny AFTER rebates on 1 million shares, you make $3,000 less commissions and fees of $755 you net $2245. Anywhere else, if you receive a 30% payout you get $900. Of course if you can't average 3/10 of a penny profit after rebates, you're right, the trader should look for a deal where there is no risk. That is why we want experienced traders.