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Fund Discount Brokers
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Broker News
Finding a good broker is a difficult task. To help, we've collected a wealth of information and provided quantitative comparisons of a variety of Canadian discount brokerages. However, the qualitative aspects of the broker-client relationship should not be discounted. Factors other than cost should be considered when choosing a good broker.
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| A guide to private placement due diligence | ||
| "Because I'm in the business of helping people, I thought I'd offer up my own 3-step guide for stockbrokers when conducting due diligence on private placements: Step 1: Make sure you have a copy of the Private Placement Memorandum (also referred to as the PPM). You're going to want to light this PPM on fire and drop it into a Hazmat dumpster at least five miles from your office. Step 2: Tell the banker/firm owner/branch manager or whoever brought it to you to go f' himself. Step 3: Head over to Dunkin Donuts, get yourself a Coffee Coolatta. Yes, I know they've got hundreds of calories - but you're worth it. You've done some good this day." [02/10/12] | ||
| What Bay Street doesn't want you to hear | ||
| "A substantial number of do-it-yourself investors are paying for financial advice they are not getting and never will. That's what can happen when you buy mutual funds from an online broker. While you typically pay nothing to buy and sell your funds, the cost of owning them can be identical to what is paid by investors who have advisers. There's almost a conspiracy of silence on this matter in the investment industry and it results from the fact that the status quo serves brokers and fund companies quite well." [12/03/11] | ||
| A milestone in low-cost investing | ||
| "The golden investing rule of controlling fees to generate bigger returns never makes more sense than it does at challenging times like these for financial markets. So, cost-conscious investors, take note of the introduction of commission-free ETF trading at online brokerage Scotia iTrade. There may not be a cheaper way to invest anywhere." [09/15/11] | ||
| Asking the right and wrong questions | ||
| "From a behavioral economics point of view, the field of financial advice is quite strange and not very useful. For the most part, professional financial services rely on clients’ answers to two questions: How much of your current salary will you need in retirement? What is your risk attitude on a seven-point scale? From my perspective, these are remarkably useless questions" [09/03/11] | ||
| A new way to slice the pie | ||
| "In theory, fee-based accounts give advisers a transparent, above-board way to answer the question of how much they charge for their services. Instead of paying commissions buried in the cost of investment products, clients pay annual fees equal to a percentage of the value of their account plus any costs associated with the investments they hold." [06/19/11] | ||
| Love the downgrade | ||
| "It would appear that as long as they spell your company’s name right,upgrades and downgrades are both good news for your stock." [02/12/11] | ||
| Your Adviser Is Scared to Set You Straight | ||
| "One danger is that if you voice a strong opinion, your adviser might not give you a second opinion. He might merely echo your own, making you think he is smart because he agrees with you—and clearing the path of least resistance to his next commission. Sometimes, acting like a sheep just pays better." [10/31/10] | ||
| Overoptimistic for a generation | ||
| "For the past quarter century, equity analysts' earnings-growth estimates have been almost 100% too high." [05/17/10] | ||
| The yes-man problem | ||
| "The problem: Financial planners are yes-men and -women, asserts a report co-authored by Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard professor and top behavioral economist. Most planners, his report finds, reinforce our bad investment behaviors instead of fixing them. And the problem, he says, may be harder to solve than the fee issue." [03/12/10] | ||
| Technology not always a godsend | ||
| "If you're a client of the online brokerage Scotia iTrade, you'll have an idea of what I'm driving at in warning about technology risk. Scotia iTrade is what Bank of Nova Scotia renamed E*Trade Canada after scooping it up back in 2008. Last month, Scotiabank set about merging iTrade's back office record-keeping operation with the bank's own system. Complaints to this column from iTrade customers began rolling in on Dec. 11 and they've continued right into the new year." [01/08/10] | ||
| Do your legwork before hiring an adviser | ||
| "There's a kind of investment risk that is statistically very rare, but crushing if it happens to you. It's called adviser risk and, thanks to coverage of the scheme allegedly perpetrated by Montreal financial adviser Earl Jones, we have a horrifying view of what it means. As much as $30-million to $50-million belonging to Mr. Jones's clients, many of them seniors, has allegedly disappeared. Some victims are looking at having to sell their homes, while others have had to rely on food banks to get by." [08/14/09] | ||
| Can you trust your financial advisor? | ||
| "Judging by the 86 comments underneath the clip, many Canadians don't trust their financial advisors and more than a few have been burned by them. With an estimated 100,000 of them in Canada alone (counting insurance agents, stock brokers, financial planners and mutual fund salespeople), I've no doubt there are a few bad apples out there. Even so, my personal experience of interviewing hundreds of advisors over the four years I wrote the Post's Advisor Post column was that 95% of them are highly educated, competent professionals who are paid fairly to do a tough job." [05/11/09] | ||
| Questrade rebating mutual fund trailer fees | ||
| "Questrade says its Mutual Fund Maximizer makes it the only direct access brokerage to rebate this fee -- representing up to 1% or more of the value of their mutual fund investments -- back to its clients." [01/14/09] | ||
| Beware of fees | ||
| "Insult is about to be added to the injury done to your investment portfolios in the past year. With the value of your account falling, you may find yourself paying higher commissions to trade stocks, as well as miscellaneous fees from which you were previously exempt. Not convinced on the merits of putting money into the markets right now, with share prices knocked way off their peaks of last summer? Now you have the additional motivation of being able to avoid parasitic fees by reinflating your depleted account." [11/12/08] | ||
| Qtrade retains crown | ||
| "Now to the question of which brokers are best. Qtrade Investor, a small firm out of Vancouver, has taken top spot for the third straight year, while BMO InvestorLine, E*Trade Canada and TD Waterhouse also scored well. Qtrade is an example of a broker that does almost everything well. Whether it's keeping costs low, providing tools that help investors make smart decisions or offering a sturdy trading platform, Qtrade has it covered." [10/25/08] | ||
| Financial advisers vs. academia | ||
| "Do investors need financial advisers? Not according to some university professors and other researchers. Financial advisers say they have the expertise to guide investors to better results and can keep them from making mistakes such as under-diversifying, chasing hot funds/stocks, and selling out at the bottom of a bear market. However, empirical studies carried out by academics find otherwise. Let's take a look at three." [08/29/08] | ||
| Scotiabank to buy E*TRADE Canada | ||
| "Scotiabank will purchase E(*)TRADE Canada for USD$442 million (approximately C$444 million), subject to regulatory approvals. The completion of today's announcement will double Scotiabank's footprint in the Canadian online investing market." [There goes another independent broker.] [07/14/08] |
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