April’s discount brokerage deals and promotions heralds the return of unlimited trading by an unlikely character in the deals section – HSBC InvestDirect. This deal is in ‘celebration’ of HSBC’s recent award by Dalbar Inc for best customer service at a Canadian discount broker, an award that RBC Direct Investing had won for several years. […]

As we move past the 2013 RRSP season, many of the promotions offered last month are either expired or will be expiring at the end of this month.  It seems like several discount brokerages are going to pass altogether on offering up any promotions for March whereas others are just extending out the deadlines of […]

In search of Canada’s best discount brokerage Getting to the bottom of who’s on top in the Canadian discount brokerage market is a lot trickier than it seems.  After all, one would assume that winning the crown of “best discount brokerage” is fairly difficult to do and also when a discount brokerage gets that award, […]

Desjardins Group invests in Qtrade for the long-term Desjardins Group, parent to discount brokerage Disnat, announced earlier this week that they are taking a significant ownership stake in Qtrade Financial Group.  Desjardins has committed to purchasing between 25 to 40% of Qtrade’s outstanding shares initially with the option to acquire the remaining shares within six […]

This February will be the busiest month for football, love and RRSP deals.  Winning new business is clearly on the minds of big and small discount brokerages with a number of promotions aimed squarely at Canadian investors looking to open RRSP accounts. Kicking off the RRSP-specific deals are a couple transfer deals from the usually […]

In part one of this series, we looked at the background of the Globe and Mail discount brokerage rankings as well as how they’re structured and who they’re targeted towards. In this next part, we take a detailed look at what the discount brokerage rankings are actually measuring and some interesting observations we made about […]

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 […]

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 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.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Introduction In the first part of our special series on discount brokerage rankings and reviews, we take a look at one of the most popular consumer research organizations, J.D. Power and Associates, and their annual survey of self-directed investors’ impressions of Canadian discount brokerages known as the Investor Satisfaction survey.  The results from this survey […]

As part of a special series on the comparison of Canadian discount brokerages, we’re taking a look at some of the major providers of this information so that self-directed investors and those interested in researching Canadian discount brokerages can gain a better understanding of the types of research that is done, what the results of […]

This week the biggest news for discount brokerages came in the form of the 2012 Globe and Mail Canadian discount brokerage rankings.  Rob Carrick’s annual survey of the Canadian discount brokerage industry looked at 12 firms this year. The top spot went to Virtual Brokers which narrowly edged out the six year champ, Qtrade while […]

Virtual Brokers Takes Top Spot The 2012 Globe and Mail Canadian discount brokerage rankings are out as of today with Virtual Brokers claiming the top spot and displacing the 6 year “reigning champ” of this survey, Qtrade (which came in second), by a razor thin margin. Becoming Globe and Mail’s top ranked brokerage, albeit barely, […]

Canadian discount brokerages seem to be busy in their workshops planning what to unveil for next year.  Many of the major financial institutions have their financial year end at October 31st which means they’re setting budgets and planning marketing campaigns for 2013.  Because of the upcoming Globe and Mail discount brokerage rankings due out next […]

November’s lineup of discount brokerage deals and promotions features many of the same players from last month, except with some minor changes to dates and amounts. Starting first with the newest deals. National Bank Direct Brokerage is running the “Take Control of the Markets!” promo where they’re offering new clients who open an account with […]

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 […]