Stock market education videos was the theme of today’s online hunt and we found a great educational resource for investors on the TD Ameritrade website. There are just over 40 videos on topics for beginner, intermediate and advanced investors. In addition to videos, however, there are links to over 80 webcasts, various articles, courses and […]

Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup This week provided an interesting lesson in activity fees handed out to one RBC Direct Investing client, covered via Global News here.  If you’ve got an account open that you’ve forgotten about, you may want to look closely at what you’re being charged by keeping the account open (you can check […]

In his soon to be released book, The Mindless Investor, Tyler Bollhorn goes ‘head to head’ with the biggest enemy of most stock traders: their common sense. According to the main theme of the book, if you try to use your head you won’t get ahead and that is because, as Tyler puts it, “without […]

Today’s daily stumble landed an interesting article about the “complicated” stock market order types and the alleged preferential order routing taking place by institutional traders for preferred clients.  While this would be another bombshell if it is true, I would question whether it is entirely surprising. The reality of stock markets is that they are […]

Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup From the Canadian discount brokerages, this past week saw the launch of a new contest by Questrade  called “Ring the bell with Questrade”.  Winners of the contest will get to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ MarketSite and round trip airfare to New York City, three nights’ accommodation and $500 […]

While wading through the internet today, I came across this post on mint.com.  It is the first of a two part series authored by Minyanville.com, an investor information site, and it describes 10 questions that investors might feel a bit sheepish about asking.   The questions that are brought up could take up entire chapters or […]

An ongoing debate for investors is whether or not the strategy of “buy and hold” is better or worse than trying to time the market.  The advocates for each side of this debate are fairly passionate about their positions which makes it difficult for retail investors to sift through the numbers that “support” each side.  […]

Today I came across a great educational tool for individual investors curious about online investing.   The investing online resource center (IORC) was designed to to be a source of noncommercial information about investing online and was created by the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA).  While it is still online, the IORC does not seem […]

Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup This week, the Canadian discount brokerage industry saw another member announce that it will move its clearing and settlement services in-house.  Virtual Brokers, a division of BBS Securities, announced that they will no longer be using Penson Financial Services Canada to take care of “back office” operations, such as trade clearing […]

For most Canadian investors and traders who place their trades online, the details of what happens after they press ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ on their stock trades is largely a trivial matter.  Should one start to think about it, however, the process of matching up millions of orders, confirming trades and documenting what went to whom […]

It’s official – Thinkorswim Canada (part of TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage)  is now accepting new Canadian accounts.  For the moment, this service will allow TD Waterhouse discount brokerage clients to trade US equities and options and only through a US Dollar margin account. Several discount brokerages have been rolling out new platforms recently including Scotia […]

Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup: As we roll into October, the Canadian discount brokerage industry continues to show signs of competitive evolution.   First, the huge news released earlier this week that Questrade will transition into clearing its own trades via an in-house clearing division (currently pending regulatory approval).  By replacing their current clearing agent (Penson Financial […]

Halloween isn’t the only scary event to come along this October.  Beginning this month, Canadian discount broker Questrade officially starts charging for inactivity fees – $19.95 per quarter to be exact. Once billed as the “no fee” discount brokerage, Questrade faced a strong backlash from its client base on Canadian deal site RedFlagDeals.com back in […]

Discount Brokerage Weekly roundup: This week, we learned of a couple of major developments in the Canadian discount brokerage marketplace that  are likely to reshape the competitive landscape.  First, the major news that optionsXpress Canada is putting a hold on opening new Canadian accounts.  We found out from optionsXpress that out that for now this […]

One of the best rated stock and options trading platforms, thinkorswim, looks like it will be opening its doors again for Canadian investors.  From various conversations with TD Waterhouse discount brokerage representatives, traders and investors alike,  regaining access to the thinkorswim platform for Canadian discount brokerage clients has been widely anticipated.  Finally, it seems that […]

As an update to our earlier story regarding optionsXpress Canada and their suspension on accepting new Canadian discount brokerage accounts, we received the following official statement from Schwab, the owner of optionsXpress Canada: “We are in the process of evaluating each business for strategic fit as part of the ongoing integration of Schwab and optionsXpress. […]

Even though trading floors and exchanges have largely been replaced by server rooms filled with boxes of computer parts, there are still some places in the world where the movement of money or commodities is governed by people who can yell the loudest.  Welcome to the world of outcry pit trading, a place that redefines […]

As part of its cross country tour, the Scotia iTrade Educational Summit stopped in Vancouver and we had a chance to check out what it was all about.  This evening session featured presentations on how to go about investing in markets using technical analysis and risk management (provided by AJ Monte of The Market Guys), […]

Conditions in the discount brokerage space seem to have taken their toll on OptionsXpress Canada. SparxTrading.com has learned that, as of mid September 2012, OptionsXpress Canada has suspended accepting new accounts from Canadians and has no plans to continue accepting new accounts from Canadians in the near future. We will continue to monitor this as […]

Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSA) Many of you are probably familiar with the saying: “the only sure things in life are death and taxes.” Well, as of January 2009 there’s been a little ray of hope as far as those taxes are concerned.   In February of 2008 the Canadian Minister of Finance (Jim Flaherty) announced […]