National Bank also offers competitive equity commissions, interest rates and account fees, but it is less economical for options traders.
TD Ameritrade Review 2021: Pros, Cons and How It Compares
User experience, also referred to as UX, covers a broad range of factors that influence how it feels for investors to use an online brokerage service. Bank-owned firms, on the other hand, tend to overlook the fact that paying a bill and placing a trade are very different experiences. Moreover, their newest designs seem to be less intuitive and more directed at driving cross-sales, instead of improving overall account management, trading experiences and educational content for DIY investors. Despite an older design, Qtrade Investor is the UX winner given its breadth of data, ease of both locating and using the information, strong trading experiences, easy-to-find usage policies and exceptionally good account management tools.
The newest addition to the Qtrade Investor platform, which deserves mention, is its portfolio analytics lineup, Portfolio Score, Portfolio Simulator, and Portfolio Creator. Questrade, our runner-up in UX, has an intuitive online platform with industry-leading customization features and functionality, so investors can tailor their experience to their personal preferences.
What is Options trading?
For decades, Canadians turned to mutual funds for diversification. As regulations changed and fees became more transparent, exchange trade funds ETFs became the security of choice.
Like mutual funds, an ETF is a basket of investments, but one that tracks an entire market instead of relying on fund managers to select the assets they think will perform well. As a result, the fund management fees called a management expense ratio, or MER for ETFs are much lower than for mutual funds. For this category ranking, we looked at the overall experience of investing in an ETF, including the availability of free product, research such as screeners and market information that can help investors with their decisions, and the general experience of placing a trade.
Qtrade Investor tops the ETF category mainly because it provides investors with a complete analysis of the ETF market so they can make more informed decisions.
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It also offers free purchases and sales on a list of ETFs, but these tend to be thinly traded ETFs rather than the most popular ones. On the flip side, runner-up National Bank Direct Brokerage is more competitive than Qtrade with its free offerings: no-commission buying and selling of all North American ETFs with minor trading restrictions, including a minimum amount of shares, placing non-phone trades and subscribing to electronic statements.

The drawbacks, again in direct contrast to Qtrade, are its research tools and general trading experience. We are often asked why we place so much value on market data in our assessments of online brokers. The answer is simple: for DIY investors, everything starts with a quote. When an investor decides its time to buy or sell a security, its price determines the trade contract. Our evaluation considers the overall experience of obtaining relevant market information, which includes the depth of a quote, general market information, analyst views, supporting charts, industry research as well as both fundamental and technical analysis.
Today, an investor can expect superior depth of information for quotes, charting and technical analysis, research, and industry-leading market notifications or alerting. The availability of market data for both individual securities and overall market analysis makes TD our top choice in this category. Our market data runner-up, Qtrade Investor, provides exceptional quote depth and fundamental stock information along with strong interactive charting, technical analysis, and equity research.
The Canadian discount brokerage industry was late to the financial services mobile party, and it still lags behind both its Canadian banking counterparts and discount brokerage firms south of the border. With the current sophistication of mobile devices, investors expect to have the same experience on their phones as they would on a desktop or laptop. The days of satisfying mobile users with access to quotes, basic account information and trades are over.
Some progressive online brokers do have a near-full account experience via mobile, offering all the same tools and analysis investors would find on their computers. But, in general, most Canadian firms are far from that level. The seamless integration between its online and mobile platforms makes Questrade our top choice in the mobile experience category. BMO InvestorLine was one of the original firms to provide mobile capabilities and it continues to be a leader, especially when it comes to strong account and market data via mobile.
But, how clearly and accurately does a firm portray itself on its public website while trying to sell you on its merits? We look for informative public sites that fully explain: what an investor can expect if they become a customer, whether they provide free insight into the markets, what the fees are for various trading level and, most importantly, how the process for opening new accounts works. One would think that each firm has the same message, but only a handful of firms really excel in terms of providing clarity and transparency on this critical initial experience.
The account and pricing information is clear and easy to navigate, the account opening experience is straightforward and fully digital no handwritten signatures required , and there are free resources for non-clients, including practice accounts. Sometimes a race is too close to call. Both TD Direct Investing and National Bank Direct Brokerage have done a great job at integrating a discount brokerage firm offering within a bank-based information site, so they tie for runner-up in the initial impression category.
If you ask me, customer service is the key differentiator between firms and should never be taken lightly. In most cases, online investors are not looking for face-to-face interaction, but rather quick responses regarding both general and secure service questions. While one could argue that COVID has had a major impact on the current and future state of customer service, our research over the past decade indicates that service levels were dropping well before the world stopped moving.
It has shown its commitment to clients with a consistent track record of responsive service typically under four hours even through the COVID crisis to date. In addition, Questrade offers live chat and correspondence via social media for investors who prefer those channels. Looking for more information?
Getting Down to the Basics of Option Trading | TD Ameritrade
BMO InvestorLine. Desjardins Online Brokerage. Laurentian Bank Discount Brokerage. National Bank Direct Brokerage.
Qtrade Investor. RBC Direct Investing. TD Direct Investing.
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Virtual Brokers. This is a good time to repeat that investing comes with risk. Unlike deposits in banks and credit unions, which are covered, up to specified amounts , by the Canada Deposit Insurance Company CDIC or provincial deposit insurance organizations, there is no protection for investment losses. However, there is protection for the property you hold within an online brokerage, including securities you own such as stocks or ETFs and cash.
The Canadian Investor Protection Fund CIPF , which was created by the investment industry in , exists to ensure your property is returned to you , at the current market value, should your investment dealer go under. Scroll down this table to see the commissions and fees charged by all 12 Canadian online brokerages. So, you may be wondering how online brokers make enough money to stay in business.
And once you sign up for free trades, they have a chance to sell you other services. Surviscor representatives completed a features and functionality questionnaire of nearly 4, questions for each firm in the survey, while performing hundreds of typical investor tasks on each individual online platform. Each firm was assigned a score based on its ranking within the seven sections of review 5 points for 1 st , 4 for 2 nd , 3 for 3 rd , 2 for 4 th and 1 for 5 th , and the overall score was the sum of the awarded sections.
It's important to note that our editorial content will never be impacted by these links. We are committed to looking at all available products in the market, and where a product ranks in our article or whether or not it's included in the first place is never driven by compensation. For more details read our MoneySense Monetization policy.
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Your email address will not be published. I need to know which online brokers willingly provide hard copy T etc. March 25th, I have been a customer of TD Waterhouse for many years but they are currently having extremely serious technical problems with little evidence of any progress on a solution. Please do not even consider doing business with this company as you are risking the loss of significant amounts of money.
What a crazy and stupid reviews. Two platforms: TD Ameritrade web and thinkorswim desktop. Customer support options includes website transparency. Tradable securities: TD Ameritrade aces the investment selection category by offering the full range of investments, including futures and forex and bitcoin futures trading for approved clients. As for the less exotic stuff, the broker's selection of over 4, no-transaction-fee mutual funds is equal to or exceeds what's offered at other big-name brokers like Charles Schwab and Fidelity.