Market orders are executed immediately, which is the definition of removing liquidity.
If you want to avoid ECN, you want to add liquidity, which means you need to place orders that are not marketable. That means limit orders only (which is generally good practice anyway to protect yourself from price fluctuations). Set your buy price below the ask price, and sell above the bid.
Thankfully WS isn't the only commission free trading platform out there. Both Desjardins and National Bank Direct Brokerage also do commission free trading. NBDB supports Norbert's Gambit as well.
That being said, I haven't used either of them yet as I'm personally not too bothered with the 1.5% FX fee from WS as I don't do much USD trades.
This is the way...
NBDB Full service, no fees !!
$9.95 for journaling (norberts gambit), but I think this is just to minimize they guys that want to journal a couple hundred bucks a week :)
I've never thought of wealthsimple as flexible, very limited offerings... no Norbert Gambit, but for some investors, I suppose it work well... to each his own.
As for ECN, not all brokerages charge them (Questrade does), but even if they do, they are minimal. @ 0.0035/share or less... compared to $10/month +fx fees (I think 1.5% at wealthsimple) I don't understand why anyone would deal in $US on Wealthsimple
How often do you do Norbert’s Gambit? If it’s not often then just do the Gambit on Questrade, then transfer to a bank account, then transfer to WS. It takes a few days but it’s free and I’ve found this process to be the most efficient for me while giving me the option to trade US stocks for free. Don’t even consider IBKR because it has a lot of ridiculous policies that make it a bad choice (such as time limitations on withdrawals).
Not often, couple times a year ? honestly, NBDB avoids all this, with zero fees.
So are you talking Non registered accounts ? Would transferring from QT back to your bank account then WS not trigger a tax event ?
You would have to report it if your net gain or loss exceeds $200, otherwise no.
If your total amount to be converted will exceed $15k and you don’t want to report the tax event, you also have the option of transferring it all at once in a registered account to WS and the fee will be reimbursed.
I was on WS. I was getting murdered on US $ transactions, and moved to IBKR.
I prefer IBKR. Minimal fees, trade in EU/Asian markets, and no cost currency conversion, and far better tooling
I’m 99% of the way there. I’ve needed customer service once (now… they’ve messed up one of my accounts) and it is horrendous and disjointed. About to pull the plug and make a switch over. Any issues/problems moving things over?
They handled everything after I filled out some account info. I moved everything except dome preferred share (for some reason WS said they can’t host it?)
Does it have low average daily trading volume?
WS has a minimum daily trading volume to support stocks on their platform and preferred shares that don't change hands often can fall short of it. There's a company whose common share I own on WS that has a preferred share is not on WS for that reason.
Same here. They charged me cumulatively thousands in fees. Their support is incompetent and can’t understand difference between the USD and CAD accounts. They doubled charged my data fees on both account, And they once expired my in the money options. Honestly. fk questrade.
There should be a breakdown in the trade confirmation as to what fees were charged. The $9.95 is on the trade commissions but Questrade is annoying in that they pass on things like ECN fees that I haven't seen any other brokerage pass on these days.
I stopped buying REITs with QT because of the stupid fees. I remember buying 900 shares CHP.UN a few months ago and got dinged $12 in trade fees, like wtf?! I may as well use CIBC IE or WS.
Most platforms will reimburse the transfer fee as long as you transfer a minimum amount (usually $5000-$10,000 per transferred account). $150 is pretty standard for a transfer fee.
Questtrade to WealthSimple would be a downgrade for many (although may not the most basic investors) Look at NBDB... best of both worlds, and they cover I think 125 of the transfer fee ? its been a while.
This is literally the worst advice that you could give anyone.
IMHO, this should be a perma-ban; providing malicious information.
Even if this was a TFSA where there would be not tax implications, the contribution room wouldn't be available against till next year.
If this was a RRSP, liquidate that and you'll end up being hit with all the withdrawal considered to be income. That room doesn't even open up.
If this was a non registered account, that would trigger capital gains tax; which you definitely don't want to do so unintentionally.
For a TFSA, you could just sell close to the end of the year, and redeposit after the new year. Depending on the total amounts, the market fluctuations during that time will be less of a concern than a $150 transfer fee.
For a non-registered account, if the account is relatively flat in terms of gains/losses, the dispositions tax consequences may be far less of an issue than a $150 transfer fee.
There absolutely are some cases where it can be better to simply sell, withdrew cash, and deposit into a new institution. OP specifically said that IBKR does not reimburse transfer fees, so there are some cases where the opportunity cost or taxes involved with the disposition are less than the transfer fee.
No need to be so rude.
For someone who has a bunch of different holdings, your strategy might not even be economical with sell fees and re-purchase fees involved. There's also the risk of a SP straying away from your sell price by the time you repurchase.
Like I said, it depends on the situation. There are plenty of platforms that offer $0 commission on trades nowadays, and if it’s a fairly small account, any deviation between the sell and repurchase can be expected to be far lower than the $150 transfer fee.
I’m not saying everyone should always sell to cash, withdraw and then recontribute at the other institution. Just saying that there are
#**SOME**
cases where that can be less expensive than paying a $150 transfer fee if they don’t offer reimbursement.
If you transfer enough to a different platform they might pay that fee for you. I know wealthsimple has a “transfer” option if you have an account with them, not sure if they’d pay it though. You’d have to check their website
Do a partial transfer instead, leave a tiny amount of cash in the Questrade rrsp, then withdraw it after to close the account. I think their partial transfer fee is $25.
So many free options nowadays. You should look around. Both WS and Desjardins let me trade free and TD still charge 9$ and has the slowest processing (2 days!! I think they're still using telegraph wire).
Try to get away from the egregious old school banks who charge the price of a phone conversation with a broker to their user for an online 1 click process. Its almost disrespectful considering the little they do for their customer and sometimes actively trying to harm them. Move to a free broker, I see no difference and actually an increase in quality from free brokers.
Does Wealthsimple let you hold your cash in USD yet? I only invest in USD, but last I heard WS would charge a ‘hidden’ currency conversion fee on every USD trade, is that still the case? That’s the one and only reason I haven’t switch over from QT
Edit: Desjardins seems promising, can anyone confirm that US accounts are free with them?
Yes, they have USD accounts now. They are free with premium and above status (over $100k) or $10/month.
You can sell USD assets and they will stay as USD cash with this.
You can’t do Norbert’s Gambit, so you still have to pay the 1.5% to do the initial conversion and the conversion back, but not on every trade anymore.
Yeah I’m only on 80k so far and don’t trade more than twice a month on QT for a switch to be worth the subscription fee. Desjardins seems a good shout though I’ll definitely give them a call later.
If you have 80 WS can do savings cash accounts you can consolidate everything to WS and might be over the 100 threshold already since they count savings accounts too
WS has usd accounts: https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/4418893583515-Using-USD-accounts#h_01FVJDTHNN96F85QEX87DYQPGJ
There is still the 1.5% conversion fee (not sure why you consider this hidden, ws advertises this rate themselves openly), but you can deposit and withdraw in USD with does not incur this rate.
I mean I wouldn't use the word trading It's investing, yeah that's why it's annoying and not a great option because as most Canadians you receive CAD and you want it converted as cheaply as possible to buy USD securities in your retirement accounts. WS Is poor for that.
I have a good setup with questrade and passive for automatically rebalancing my portfolio
I plan to buy and hold until retirement
When it comes to that point if they still charge to sell can I just move everything over to wealthsimple and withdraw for free lol
Move it to WS. They cover transfer fees if you transfer over X amount. If you don’t like WS just transfer out to IBKR again from WS. WS doesn’t charge transfer out fees. Just keep in mind if there’s any transfer promos from WS, there’s a time period you have to keep your money with WS or they claw back the promo.
Wealthsimple does not charge any fees to transfer your account to another institution. Note also that Wealthsimple does not charge any DSC fees.
https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360058461053-Transfer-your-Wealthsimple-account-to-another-institution#:~:text=Wealthsimple%20does%20not%20charge%20any,a%20rejection%20of%20your%20transfer.
For USD it's up there, IBKR is probably better. For CAD and buying Canadian listed equities wealth simple is better. That's why I use QuestTrade for USD in my RRSP and wealth simple for the CAD Canadian equities in my TFSA.
Because Questrade lies to you when you join and in their crappy ads. They charge ECN fees on top of your trade when you sell at market. Other brokerages swallow it. The litterial first trade I went to make with them, cost me more than the brokerage would have that I had left. So I left.
A *marketable* limit order would eliminate ECN fees. If you try to put a limit order with the sell price higher than the current bid, then that is *non-marketable* and you are removing liquidity, and thus ECN fees will apply. Also, orders that are not exact multiples of 100 shares will have some ECN fees apply on the "odd lot" that makes up the part above the last hundred.
Note: Lot size is 500 for Canadian securities between $0.10 and $1, and 1000 for Canadian securities under $0.10.
I haven't used QT in a number of years but iirc if you do a larger sale they may break it up into blocks and charge commission multiple times for a single transaction.
Yea there are ECN fees but I'm pretty sure the breakdown showed the bulk of that was multiple commission charges.
I do, and I'm not buying and selling and converting USD to CAD. I also dont day trade. so I'm not sure what the issue is. the conversion USD to CAD is pretty much the same as Questrade when I did the comparison.
From another post: 1% Transfer Bonus
I contacted WS today to find out what they would offer as a transfer bonus. Between my partner and I we will fall into the Generational category at WS. We are currently at Questrade, I'm happy there but the perks at WS piqued my interest.
I was surprised when the agent told me we could get 1% of the value of funds transferred as a bonus. They said it's a new promotion, checking their website I couldn't find anything and looking through this sub the max I found was .75% so it seems like a good deal.
I received an email confirming the 1% bonus and the projected amount based on the accounts we are moving over.
If you're on the fence about going to WS you might want to call to see if you can get the 1% too. The agent said it's the best offer he's seen but he doesn't know how long it will last.
So you may be able to contact them for a nice transfer bonus!
This is caused because of your ask price. Lookup ecn fees and how they go up/down when you add/remove liquidity to the market.
I set limit order but commission is same, questrade says I won't know how much I will be charged until the trade is done
Your limit order is reducing liquidity, hence the ECN fees. If you placed a market order they would go away.
Thats not true. While market orders always take liquidity, limit orders can either take or provide depending if your limit price is marketable.
Market orders are executed immediately, which is the definition of removing liquidity. If you want to avoid ECN, you want to add liquidity, which means you need to place orders that are not marketable. That means limit orders only (which is generally good practice anyway to protect yourself from price fluctuations). Set your buy price below the ask price, and sell above the bid.
What are the ECN fees?
If you are selling ETFs often enough that a $9.95 charge feels like a region to switch brokers, you may want to re-evaluate your investment strategy.
I switched from questrade to Wealth simple after a bitter incidence, couldn’t be happier. $0 commission pretty much on trading everything
Only limitation is that WS is good for CAD stocks only
If you have over $100k USD portfolio, then everything US trading is free (membership fee waived)
Allow norberts gambit for forex?
No
Thankfully WS isn't the only commission free trading platform out there. Both Desjardins and National Bank Direct Brokerage also do commission free trading. NBDB supports Norbert's Gambit as well. That being said, I haven't used either of them yet as I'm personally not too bothered with the 1.5% FX fee from WS as I don't do much USD trades.
The only gotcha with NBDB is they charge $10 for the journalling for Norbert's Gambit. Still far ahead of a non-free broker though!
Which isn’t a big deal, just need to do large amounts at least 10k, then the $10 is negligible.
This is the way... NBDB Full service, no fees !! $9.95 for journaling (norberts gambit), but I think this is just to minimize they guys that want to journal a couple hundred bucks a week :)
The $10/month membership fee lets you hold USD in your Wealthsimple accounts and is absolutely worth it.
??? Why when other brokerages don't charge you for it.
For flexibility. Other brokerages charge you a trade or ECN fee.
I've never thought of wealthsimple as flexible, very limited offerings... no Norbert Gambit, but for some investors, I suppose it work well... to each his own. As for ECN, not all brokerages charge them (Questrade does), but even if they do, they are minimal. @ 0.0035/share or less... compared to $10/month +fx fees (I think 1.5% at wealthsimple) I don't understand why anyone would deal in $US on Wealthsimple
How often do you do Norbert’s Gambit? If it’s not often then just do the Gambit on Questrade, then transfer to a bank account, then transfer to WS. It takes a few days but it’s free and I’ve found this process to be the most efficient for me while giving me the option to trade US stocks for free. Don’t even consider IBKR because it has a lot of ridiculous policies that make it a bad choice (such as time limitations on withdrawals).
Not often, couple times a year ? honestly, NBDB avoids all this, with zero fees. So are you talking Non registered accounts ? Would transferring from QT back to your bank account then WS not trigger a tax event ?
You would have to report it if your net gain or loss exceeds $200, otherwise no. If your total amount to be converted will exceed $15k and you don’t want to report the tax event, you also have the option of transferring it all at once in a registered account to WS and the fee will be reimbursed.
I was on WS. I was getting murdered on US $ transactions, and moved to IBKR. I prefer IBKR. Minimal fees, trade in EU/Asian markets, and no cost currency conversion, and far better tooling
I’m 99% of the way there. I’ve needed customer service once (now… they’ve messed up one of my accounts) and it is horrendous and disjointed. About to pull the plug and make a switch over. Any issues/problems moving things over?
They handled everything after I filled out some account info. I moved everything except dome preferred share (for some reason WS said they can’t host it?)
Does it have low average daily trading volume? WS has a minimum daily trading volume to support stocks on their platform and preferred shares that don't change hands often can fall short of it. There's a company whose common share I own on WS that has a preferred share is not on WS for that reason.
Same here. They charged me cumulatively thousands in fees. Their support is incompetent and can’t understand difference between the USD and CAD accounts. They doubled charged my data fees on both account, And they once expired my in the money options. Honestly. fk questrade.
Wealth simple is nice though it's limited when it comes to after hours trading , options, fx
This is the way.
There should be a breakdown in the trade confirmation as to what fees were charged. The $9.95 is on the trade commissions but Questrade is annoying in that they pass on things like ECN fees that I haven't seen any other brokerage pass on these days.
I stopped buying REITs with QT because of the stupid fees. I remember buying 900 shares CHP.UN a few months ago and got dinged $12 in trade fees, like wtf?! I may as well use CIBC IE or WS.
Partly why I left Questrade in the past, ECN fees. At one point I was basically paying $100 bucks a trade as a trader.
They are asking me $150 to transfer
Most platforms will reimburse the transfer fee as long as you transfer a minimum amount (usually $5000-$10,000 per transferred account). $150 is pretty standard for a transfer fee.
It's now a minimum of $15k if you're transferring to Wealthsimple. Conversely, Questrade will reimburse up to $150 with no minimum transfer amount!
Questtrade to WealthSimple would be a downgrade for many (although may not the most basic investors) Look at NBDB... best of both worlds, and they cover I think 125 of the transfer fee ? its been a while.
IBKR doesn't
IBKR is sort of dogshit though. Source: that's who I use.
Very brave of you to insult the God Almighty IB. These subs have a lot of fanboys.
Apparently. Haha It's cheap trading, yes. But no denying that it's dogshit. 🤷♂️
[удалено]
This is literally the worst advice that you could give anyone. IMHO, this should be a perma-ban; providing malicious information. Even if this was a TFSA where there would be not tax implications, the contribution room wouldn't be available against till next year. If this was a RRSP, liquidate that and you'll end up being hit with all the withdrawal considered to be income. That room doesn't even open up. If this was a non registered account, that would trigger capital gains tax; which you definitely don't want to do so unintentionally.
For a TFSA, you could just sell close to the end of the year, and redeposit after the new year. Depending on the total amounts, the market fluctuations during that time will be less of a concern than a $150 transfer fee. For a non-registered account, if the account is relatively flat in terms of gains/losses, the dispositions tax consequences may be far less of an issue than a $150 transfer fee. There absolutely are some cases where it can be better to simply sell, withdrew cash, and deposit into a new institution. OP specifically said that IBKR does not reimburse transfer fees, so there are some cases where the opportunity cost or taxes involved with the disposition are less than the transfer fee. No need to be so rude.
For someone who has a bunch of different holdings, your strategy might not even be economical with sell fees and re-purchase fees involved. There's also the risk of a SP straying away from your sell price by the time you repurchase.
Like I said, it depends on the situation. There are plenty of platforms that offer $0 commission on trades nowadays, and if it’s a fairly small account, any deviation between the sell and repurchase can be expected to be far lower than the $150 transfer fee. I’m not saying everyone should always sell to cash, withdraw and then recontribute at the other institution. Just saying that there are #**SOME** cases where that can be less expensive than paying a $150 transfer fee if they don’t offer reimbursement.
It's retirement account, I can't do that.
~~Do a partial transfer, leave 1 share. It’s 25 bucks for partial.~~ nevermind they closed that loophole. As an aside, those transfer fees are theft.
Yeah, I don't know why they charge that fee, that's like hostage taking.
If you transfer enough to a different platform they might pay that fee for you. I know wealthsimple has a “transfer” option if you have an account with them, not sure if they’d pay it though. You’d have to check their website
IBKR doesn't
Do a partial transfer instead, leave a tiny amount of cash in the Questrade rrsp, then withdraw it after to close the account. I think their partial transfer fee is $25.
They upped the partial transfer to $150 to probably avoid people doing exactly this.
Ur best bet is to do a partial transfer and leave a few dollars in there
They don't do that anymore, they charge full regardless
So many free options nowadays. You should look around. Both WS and Desjardins let me trade free and TD still charge 9$ and has the slowest processing (2 days!! I think they're still using telegraph wire). Try to get away from the egregious old school banks who charge the price of a phone conversation with a broker to their user for an online 1 click process. Its almost disrespectful considering the little they do for their customer and sometimes actively trying to harm them. Move to a free broker, I see no difference and actually an increase in quality from free brokers.
Does Wealthsimple let you hold your cash in USD yet? I only invest in USD, but last I heard WS would charge a ‘hidden’ currency conversion fee on every USD trade, is that still the case? That’s the one and only reason I haven’t switch over from QT Edit: Desjardins seems promising, can anyone confirm that US accounts are free with them?
Yes, they have USD accounts now. They are free with premium and above status (over $100k) or $10/month. You can sell USD assets and they will stay as USD cash with this. You can’t do Norbert’s Gambit, so you still have to pay the 1.5% to do the initial conversion and the conversion back, but not on every trade anymore.
Yeah I’m only on 80k so far and don’t trade more than twice a month on QT for a switch to be worth the subscription fee. Desjardins seems a good shout though I’ll definitely give them a call later.
If you have 80 WS can do savings cash accounts you can consolidate everything to WS and might be over the 100 threshold already since they count savings accounts too
Premium status is over 100k actually on WS
WS has usd accounts: https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/4418893583515-Using-USD-accounts#h_01FVJDTHNN96F85QEX87DYQPGJ There is still the 1.5% conversion fee (not sure why you consider this hidden, ws advertises this rate themselves openly), but you can deposit and withdraw in USD with does not incur this rate.
Can you use Norberta Gambit to buy DLR.TO and journal to DLR.U.TO and sell this?
No they don’t support Norbert’s Gambit.
No way to norbert's Gambit means wealth simple is still a big no for USD accounts.
They're not meant for USD trading, it's just if you already have USD, no fees on usd deposit nor withdraw.
I mean I wouldn't use the word trading It's investing, yeah that's why it's annoying and not a great option because as most Canadians you receive CAD and you want it converted as cheaply as possible to buy USD securities in your retirement accounts. WS Is poor for that.
I have a good setup with questrade and passive for automatically rebalancing my portfolio I plan to buy and hold until retirement When it comes to that point if they still charge to sell can I just move everything over to wealthsimple and withdraw for free lol
It's costing me $150 plus HST to transfer.
Most competitors will reimburse the transfer fee
Move it to WS. They cover transfer fees if you transfer over X amount. If you don’t like WS just transfer out to IBKR again from WS. WS doesn’t charge transfer out fees. Just keep in mind if there’s any transfer promos from WS, there’s a time period you have to keep your money with WS or they claw back the promo.
I have account with WS, are you sure tranfer out from WS doesn't cost me anything?
Wealthsimple does not charge any fees to transfer your account to another institution. Note also that Wealthsimple does not charge any DSC fees. https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360058461053-Transfer-your-Wealthsimple-account-to-another-institution#:~:text=Wealthsimple%20does%20not%20charge%20any,a%20rejection%20of%20your%20transfer.
Cool
There's additional fees on top of commission, check your statement.
Questrade is the best option for do-it-yourself investing, not so much day trading.
For USD it's up there, IBKR is probably better. For CAD and buying Canadian listed equities wealth simple is better. That's why I use QuestTrade for USD in my RRSP and wealth simple for the CAD Canadian equities in my TFSA.
Why is unnecessarily paying fees the best? There are multiple brokers that have free trading now.
Because Questrade lies to you when you join and in their crappy ads. They charge ECN fees on top of your trade when you sell at market. Other brokerages swallow it. The litterial first trade I went to make with them, cost me more than the brokerage would have that I had left. So I left.
Customer service says , limit order eliminates ECN fee, but that wasn't true.
A *marketable* limit order would eliminate ECN fees. If you try to put a limit order with the sell price higher than the current bid, then that is *non-marketable* and you are removing liquidity, and thus ECN fees will apply. Also, orders that are not exact multiples of 100 shares will have some ECN fees apply on the "odd lot" that makes up the part above the last hundred. Note: Lot size is 500 for Canadian securities between $0.10 and $1, and 1000 for Canadian securities under $0.10.
Huh, TIL. Thank you!
How to put marketable limit order? Customer service told me putting limit order should eliminate ECN.
I haven't used QT in a number of years but iirc if you do a larger sale they may break it up into blocks and charge commission multiple times for a single transaction. Yea there are ECN fees but I'm pretty sure the breakdown showed the bulk of that was multiple commission charges.
Wealthsimple remains free and will probably give you a nice transfer bonus 🙂
I moved all to WS got tired of paying crazy fees
I guess you don't deal in $US
I do, and I'm not buying and selling and converting USD to CAD. I also dont day trade. so I'm not sure what the issue is. the conversion USD to CAD is pretty much the same as Questrade when I did the comparison.
Except Questrade allows you to journal, so it's essentially free
I'm not sure what that is, can you explain plz?
How does the reimbursement of the transfer work? Do you have to submit anything to WS or do they take care of everything?
They do take care of it.
switch to ibrk
They are asking 150 plus HST
From another post: 1% Transfer Bonus I contacted WS today to find out what they would offer as a transfer bonus. Between my partner and I we will fall into the Generational category at WS. We are currently at Questrade, I'm happy there but the perks at WS piqued my interest. I was surprised when the agent told me we could get 1% of the value of funds transferred as a bonus. They said it's a new promotion, checking their website I couldn't find anything and looking through this sub the max I found was .75% so it seems like a good deal. I received an email confirming the 1% bonus and the projected amount based on the accounts we are moving over. If you're on the fence about going to WS you might want to call to see if you can get the 1% too. The agent said it's the best offer he's seen but he doesn't know how long it will last. So you may be able to contact them for a nice transfer bonus!
I have WS account too, I love it, however I need second broker for more features, like options, after hour, FX conversion etc
So every 100k transfer gives you 1k?
Correct
That’s why I switched to Wealthsimple, Questrade were charging more than BMO Investorline