Highlights of this Chapter – The Mindless Investor Chapter six of The Mindless Investor looks at the advantages that everyday investors have over the bigger players.  As it turns out, smaller investors have better maneuverability and lower performance hurdles.  What it takes for smaller investors to succeed is a strategy that fits their size. Key […]

Introduction As part of our continued look at Canadian discount brokerage rankings, we review the longest running comparison and ranking of Canadian discount brokerages: The Globe and Mail’s annual ranking of online brokers, which had its start back in 1999. In part one of this series, we go through how we conducted the review, who […]

Happy New Year to all of our deal hunting readers and welcome to another edition of Discount Brokerage Deals & Promotions. One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions for folks is to slim down. As it turns out, the number of deals being offered by discount brokerages has also slimmed down.  Right out of […]

If you are a self-directed investor prepare for even more marketing, incentives and competition for your business in 2013.  With modest trading volumes and account openings in 2012, a gun-shy investor base and increased downward pressure on commission pricing, discount brokerages will be trying very hard to win new business in 2013 but also to […]

Highlights of this Chapter Chapter 4 of The Mindless Investor was an interesting look at how Tyler got his start and progressed as a trader and we highly recommend taking a look at it. In keeping with the more instructive nature of this series of reviews, we chose to move ahead to chapter 5, which […]

An interesting article was published on WealthManagement.com claiming that clients of financial advisors who are also investing through self-directed accounts are “cheating” on their advisors.  While the tone of the question presumes that somehow individuals are betrothed to their financial advisors, what is more troubling is the construal of investors as “cheaters” for seeking out […]

It looks like TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage has recently rolled out its new name: TD Direct Investing. With the new name TD Direct Investing comes a much more user-friendly layout to their website, and many more pictures of smiley happy people. After waves of reports and surveys about investors requiring added support and educational resources, […]

In this final section of our special series on the J.D. Power & Associates Discount Broker Investor Satisfaction Survey, we look at the survey from the perspectives of its creators as well as the company that has placed first in investor satisfaction for the past four years.  Dr. Lubo Li, Senior Director and Industry Practice […]

As 2012 draws to a close, it looks like the discount brokerage industry is going into autopilot.  This past week saw the expiry of a couple of promotions. First, Scotia iTrade’s 100 days of unlimited trading offer expired this week.  This leaves Questrade as the only discount brokerage currently offering unlimited trades.   Speaking of Questrade, […]

Highlights of Chapter 3 – The Mindless Investor This brief chapter in The Mindless Investor focuses on what “being a trader” means.  According to Tyler, becoming a competent trader means first understanding what kind of trading style best suits the reader. The key points covered by this chapter are that trading is not gambling, successful […]

As part of its 30th anniversary, Disnat has put together a fun promotional infographic that celebrates 180 years of stock trading in Canada as well as its own history as a pioneer in the Canadian discount brokerage industry.  To learn more about the deal they’re offering as a part of this promotion, click here.

How to use the Visual Discount Brokerage Rankings Table We’ve collected the results from the J.D. Power and Associates Investor Satisfaction survey from 2012 (Table 1) as well as historical results from 2009-2012 (Table 2).  To help visualize how the different discount brokerages have performed on the surveys relative to other discount brokerages, we’ve created […]

We recently attended a roundtable event provided by TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage entitled “Stock Chatter” at their downtown Vancouver Investor Centre. This educational session lasted an hour and a half and provided the audience with an overview of current stock  market conditions and  two different approaches to equity valuation. The presentation also covered two case […]

Interactive Brokers made the news this week as it released its trading metrics for the month of November.  While not a perfect proxy for the rest of the investment market, Interactive Brokers’ transaction volumes, known as Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) help to provide an indirect measure of the ‘health’ of the stock market participants […]

Highlights of Chapter 2 – The Mindless Investor Three key points that are covered in this chapter of The Mindless Investor all revolve around investors taking responsibility for their financial decisions. Understanding that trading is a battle, that the market is filled with competing interests and that “the market” itself can be a source of […]

If you missed the first part of our J.D. Power & Associates Discount Brokerage Rankings series, read it here. The two main objectives of this section are to provide readers with: A look at the overall discount brokerage marketplace to see what, if any trends in investor satisfaction there are that matter to consumers A […]

We recently attended the educational seminar by TD Waterhouse discount brokerage entitled “Everything You Need to Know About Income Investing” at the downtown Vancouver investor centre. This lunchtime session provided attendees with an overview of different fixed income investment vehicles such as corporate bonds and convertible bonds.  In addition, the session also touched on preferred […]

On the heels of the results from the annual Globe and Mail Canadian Discount Brokerage rankings, the 2012 Morningstar Canadian Investment Awards were handed out on November 28th and included a “Best Discount Brokerage” category.  While not nearly as well known as the J.D. Power and Associates award for Investor Satisfaction, the Morningstar Awards offer […]

Vancouver was the last Canadian city to play host to the series Global Economic Forecast – The World in 2013 and Beyond that toured across Canada in November of 2012.  Put together by HSBC’s Business without Borders unit, this seminar featured perspectives on what is facing the world in both the immediate and not too […]

For self-directed investors, it seems like the gift of discount brokerage deals has already been given in November. As it stands, the deals offered by discount brokerages into the end of the year are largely carried over from last month. The most noteworthy deal announced mid-November was the unlimited trading offer by Questrade. Similar to […]