Hey if any canadians here are wondering tdwaterhouse is planing to finally undercut the competition and release lower commission rates, and finally add direct access. They are giving away free level II quotes, charts, streaming realtime, news, option strategizer for both canadian and US stocks. Its no IB, but its way better then tradefreedom or etrade. Plus you arent paying crazy fees for level II quotes or news. And its canadian so no more wire transfers. http://micro.newswire.ca/release.cgi?rkey=1402033756&view=62342-0&Start=0
lol but they are finally kicking into gear again. Its nice to see some competition. I saw a preview, its comparable to etrade, but it has all routing capabilities. I just want to see how good there smart routing tech. I know td is notorious for routing to their favoured market makers firsts, I hope they will remove that from their active trader platform.
My only complaint about IB, please allow pit access to futures !!! They are the best. I just posted TD's stuff, b/c its nice to finally see some competition happening in the canadian brokerage side. They have been for so long ripping off the average canadian investor. Td for example charges 29$ a trade for canadians,and gives them lackluster research, while their american counterpart gives them access to all kind of research, and has commish of 9.95. And TD canada routes it to some wierd canadian marketmaker all the time. And this was back in 1998, when it was called td greenline.
I agree that it's nice to see that Canadian brokers are finally starting to become a bit more competitive. I currently have a small retail account with a Canadian broker (won't say which), and I frankly get raped by commissions. First thing that I will do once I get serious about this (and have more money to trade with) will be to switch brokers. As for TD's new commissions scheme, you would need to trade at least 10 times per month to qualify for the $15 trades, and 50 times per month for the $10 trades. Both Questrade and Trade Freedom would be significantly cheaper if you trade <50 trades per month, and TD basically equals them if you do >50 trades per month. At least this will put some pressure on BMO to follow suite, perhaps it will even lead to Questrade or Trade Freedom lowering their commissions a bit further.
BENG, Actually it's Ameritrade who bought TD Waterhouse recently--not the other way around. Ameritrade bought a few companies in the last few years. Hope it's good for its clients.
actually it was tdwaterhouse that ameritrade....please read press release http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/pdf/ameritrade.pdf
no kidding. When the brokers start fighting in canada, they really go at it. I remember the first down draft, when doing online trades, were almost as expensive as full service brokers. They kept saying the prices were there b/c of regulatory problems in canada. It was complete bulk, but they charged it anyways. But they started cutting, and the other brokers got scared and lowered commishs. Hopefully this time they will start matching their us counterparts, and finally give the same amount of research.