Impossible to find a decent online brokerage in Canada

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PolymathMind

I trade maybe 3-10 a month. All of the big brokerages (td waterhouse,bmo,scotiabank,rbc)here charge $29.99 per trade if you don't do 30 trades a month which I fall into, which I am paying right now, yea I know its a rip off. I'm with TD Waterhouse now, which is the canadian version of ameritrade. Ameritrade customers should take a look at waterhouse, it looks like its a 20 year old site, so ugly and old, meanwhile amertirade website is so rich, feature friendly and new...

I am not going with questrade as I've heard they take hours to fill in orders, especially on pinksheets/otc (which I also trade). On top of this questrade charges ECN, this is another thing that I hate, ECN fees are another thing that was created by the big banks to rip off more people. When your buying 3million shares of a pinksheet valued at 0.0001 the ecn fee will be over $500.00

interactive brokers is another rip off, I don't know why it gets so much praise.. And what is up with these brokerages charging a % of the total value? What the hell is that? So if my value is 10k your going to take $100 from me? What a rip off. Why can't they just charge a flat fee for unlimited shares like almost all US exchanges? I'd even pay $20.00 a trade if they let you buy pinks/otc unlimited.

On top of all this, none of the brokerages in canada display real time bid/ask for OTC/Pinksheets. So I would basically be trading pennies blind if I did..


I'm still looking for a brokerage, if anyone can help me please do post.
 
Take a look at Questrade.

The banks do not cater to day traders no matter what they say. Their commissions are robbery for this day and age.

Questrade commission is about $5 per side up to 500 shares, then 1 cent per share afterwards up to a maximum of $10 per side.

It's not an amazing deal, but it's a whole different world compared to what the banks are offering.
 
Quote from stefan_777:

Take a look at Questrade.

The banks do not cater to day traders no matter what they say. Their commissions are robbery for this day and age.

Questrade commission is about $5 per side up to 500 shares, then 1 cent per share afterwards up to a maximum of $10 per side.

It's not an amazing deal, but it's a whole different world compared to what the banks are offering.
More...

Yes but questrade makes you pay ECN fees and I hear they take hours to fill in orders.. not being rude but did you even read my post?
 
Well adding liquidity is free on any ECN.

Taking liquidity is free on their MNGD ECN also. I've used marketable limit orders on this ECN and there isn't any delay, it seems just as fast NSDQ or ARCA for the same orders, and I was doing them dozens of times a day. It never took more than 2 seconds for fill confirmation even on wild days.

Mind you, I wasn't using their web based platform, but it shouldn't make a difference.

Where are you getting your info?

And why pink sheets? Are you buying lottery tickets?
 
You don't mention how IB is a rip off, give your reason. And from my experience with Questrade's execution, it is fair compared to the bank brokerages, so with 3-10 trades a month it might work out for you. The alternative is to call up a prop firm and clear thru them, but at the trade frequency you are going at the benefits won't be obvious unless you are moving serious size.
 
Quote from bespoke:

hi. you should try questrade and IB
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Hi, thanks for that but I've already looked into those.

The reason why IB is a rip off is they charge a percent of the value of your transaction.. 0.5% of 5k is going to be $50 off the bat, that's even worse then the $30 im paying now.. And there unbundled commission is an even bigger rip off, if I was to purchase 3M shares of a penny stock at 0.0002 they charge 0.002/share which is almost all of my trade value, basically no point of trading.

Once again, as usual, we Canadians have literally been sh*t on by brokerages. US firms average cost is under $5.00 a trade, can you believe that. Zecco charges 4.50 unlimited shares..
 
Quote from stefan_777:

Well adding liquidity is free on any ECN.

Taking liquidity is free on their MNGD ECN also. I've used marketable limit orders on this ECN and there isn't any delay, it seems just as fast NSDQ or ARCA for the same orders, and I was doing them dozens of times a day. It never took more than 2 seconds for fill confirmation even on wild days.

Mind you, I wasn't using their web based platform, but it shouldn't make a difference.

Where are you getting your info?

And why pink sheets? Are you buying lottery tickets?
More...

Hey, pink sheets.. no I'm not buying lottery tickets. Pink sheets are very important to me, more important then anything else..

Because my budget isn't too big I can't make the gains I want trading bluechips, or stocks priced over $3.00. And even the gains I've made with regular stocks it's never been over $2k which isn't enough for me.

With pinksheets I like them because I've made serious gains in very short ammounts of times, very liquid and heavyweight outcomes either way which I'm willing to risk. I'm not a player and dont have enough liquid to day trade higher priced stocks so I trade pennies..
 
TD ThinkorSwim: Makes all other platforms look like a toy, but is quite expensive.

Quest Trade: Possible the most cost effective option available in Canada. Decent charting.

Oanda: FX powerhouse broker. I'm yet to come across better spreads and they're now MT4 compatible. They have an office in bay st.
 
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