Any good Canadian brokers for daytrading ?

[Peternam]

Quote from stefan_777:



Questrade is probably your best bet outside of IB Canada. No PDT 25k minimum at Questrade. Decent commissions compared to brokerages south of the border. Way better than any of the Canadian banks offerings.

You know of any others ? ($4.95 minimum per trade should be lower)

 

[chasedream]

$4.95 mimimum fee is a bit high for day trading.

 

[stefan_777]

Quote from Peternam:

You know of any others ? ($4.95 minimum per trade should be lower)

I agree, it is high for day trading. But it's the best of the worst, since every other retail broker in Canada (except IB) doesn't go lower than $7-9 per side after you meet their activity minimums.

Other than just trading Canadian securities with IB Canada, the other route would be prop firms. I just noticed in an adjacent thread that you're American. Can American residents even apply to IB Canada? It would seem kind of silly. Americans can apply to Questrade though.

By the way, I'm not with any Canadian firm now. Thank God.

To avoid PDT, and if you know what you're doing, you could look at futures or forex.

 

[MoreYummy]

$4.95 is high, unless you can do big amount of shares per trade.

 

[stefan_777]

Quote from MoreYummy:

$4.95 is high, unless you can do big amount of shares per trade.

Yeah.

I figured that too, but then realized the OP is using less than 25k. If he had more than 25k, Questrade would be completely out of the picture.

 

[thunderbolttr]

Quote from stefan_777:

Americans can apply to Questrade though.

Questrade doesn't open accounts for U.S. residents.

 

[stefan_777]

Quote from thunderbolttr:

Questrade doesn't open accounts for U.S. residents.

Interesting that's true, but you can apply with a U.S social insurance number as long as you're residing in Canada.

Canadians can't open U.S accounts for equities either.

 

[exaltedangel09]

Quote from stefan_777:

IB fans are very defensive. If the shares are cleared in the U.S, it would be a U.S security, but it could also be a crosslisted Canadian company.

If you're Canadian and you don't have 25k and you want to daytrade highly liquid securities (US), don't go with IB. End of story.

Or you better have good timing.. I mean you could be unrealized +$500 but can't exit because of PDT. and when the 5 business days have passed, perhaps your unrealized gains have turned to losses!!