TradingTools . ca

Articles and reviews on Canadian online stockbrokers platforms

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This is TradingTools.ca, a site where you will find articles and trading tips and how-to’s on Canadian online stockbrokers platforms.

High FeesHere is my story: like many of you out there, I have started my investment “journey” with a trip to the bank and putting the money in one of the high-MER mutual funds the bank offered. Looking at the average past performance of the mutual funds however, I always had difficulties understanding why they charge those high fees (~2%) when they cannot even meet the performance of the bonds or stock market index that they use to benchmark their funds against!

After giving the big banks two big thumbs down, I decided to take the matter into my own hands – I needed to start investing on my own by trading online. Unfortunately I have hit another wall – the $29/trade fees charged by most of the big banks as I didn’t qualify for the lower fees offered to those with minimum $50,000 in assets or those that do a gazillion of transactions per month. No, thank you!

Fortunately, I have found that there are Canadian online discount brokers that offer “the little guy” (aka me) more competitive rates (read waaay more competitive).

Online trading

The following requirements were the base of the criteria selection I have used to identify my future discount broker:

  • The broker must be Canadian based and operated;
  • It must have low stock trading fees: $5 or less;
  • Full online sign up – no printing, faxing or mailing needed;
  • It allows RRSP & TFSA accounts in USD (no FX conversion fees).

Being new to the whole online trading scene, after signing up, I have found that there was a lot of information to digest at once, from basic investing terminology to how to use the trading tools. So, after reading a lot of materials, watching tens of training videos and of course actually using the trading tools I discovered a lot of “tips & tricks”; this is the knowledge that I would like to share with you, the readers of this blog.

So, if you’re still looking for a stockbroker, check out the Brokers Reviews and if you already have one, see our Trading Tools section for tips and tricks. Or just head to the Trading Cafe to learn about and join the conversation on basic and  advanced stock trading techniques.

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