It’s been barely a month since Alexander Green remarked that we’re currently enjoying “the most disrespected bull market in history.” Green described how investors who were shell-shocked by 2008 were still pulling money out of equities and taking shelter in fixed income and cash. And until very recently, the financial media were fanning the flames of pessimism: a Wall Street Journal reporter called 2012 “another very difficult year for investors” even though the MSCI World Index was up over 16%.
I’m ready to declare this trend is reversing. I have no hard data, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a dramatic shift in the tone of reader emails. For almost three years, the common refrain was “I’m nervous about getting into stocks because the markets have been terrible lately.” But since the New Year, that’s changed to, “I’m nervous about getting into stocks because the markets have been so good lately.”
In case you missed the irony, let me hit you over the head with it: instead of being afraid because stocks fell sharply in 2008, investors are now afraid because they’ve risen sharply since 2009.
I don’t mean to poke fun at people’s fears. I bring this up because it’s a lesson for investors who have been waiting on the sidelines “until things settle down.” Since the financial crisis, we’ve endured rumours of a double-dip recession, a downgrade of US debt, serious macro problems in Europe, and the fiscal cliff. All those events made investors avoid equities because they feared more losses. I don’t know what lies ahead, but it might be fair to say things have now settled down. But instead of re-entering the market, these same investors are now avoiding them because they think prices are too high. So when exactly do you pull the trigger?
This is what happens when you rely on emotion to make investment decisions. A better approach is to set a long-term asset allocation based on your goals and your temperament and then rebalance according to a schedule. A strategy of buy-hold-rebalance can still be emotionally difficult, but if your asset mix is appropriate you should never find yourself on the sidelines again.
WoW!
Does it have a downside?
So, buying is free.
Selling, is it 9,95$?
Any new investor should use Questrade no matter how much many they want to invest!?
I have dealt with both Questrade and VB (moreso the former). I found that VB was generally responsive and decent to work with, right up until they made that no-commission ETF offer, at which time things seemed to go downhill. Pure speculation: they are a small brokerage, and were instantly overwhelmed by the deluge of interest they received after the commission-free ETF offer & Globe & Mail best brokerage win. Time will tell how they dig themselves out of it.
Questrade on the other hand I have found to be generally decent. From a customer service standpoint, they are available (Live Chat, email, phone, wait times are sometimes long but generally reasonable), generally knowledgeable and seem to address things quickly. I do admit to some small hiccups with Questrade – some small issues processing mailed-in forms, earlier this year they brought their clearing operations in-house (previously used Penson Financial) and some small issues have resulted there – some things delayed, etc. As a value investor, in no particular hurry, these things have not really bothered me, and to Questrade’s credit all have been corrected eventually. That said, although I don’t engage such things personally, I could see that if one was an “active” trader and required more focused, reliable, fast, etc. tools, perhaps Questrade’s “small issues” might make me a bit nervous. For buying-and-holding ETFs a couple times a year, though, I have no issue, and with this latest offer, think they are clearly the best choice out there.
@bettrave, I’m pretty sure that is /not/ what Dan was saying.
@bettrve: Selling would incur the normal commission of $4.95. Details on the Questrade site. As Scott points out, I’m certainly not encouraging anyone to rush out and sign up for one of these offers. Trading commissions are only one factor to consider when setting up a portfolio and an investment plan.
@Danno: Thanks for the insight. I suspect you’re right that VB has had difficulty keeping up with demand after its recent spate of good press. Good to hear that Questrade was largely a positive experience.
Hey thanks for the news on HXS. I really like this fund, because it gives you the total return with dividends. Only downside is the counter party risk and the spread on bid/nav. I don’t think it’s too popular, yet.
As for Questrade, that is an amazing announcement. But be warned. I left Questrade because they kept making mistakes. I would call or do live chat and spend over 40 minutes waiting. Emails took 3-4 days to respond, often with the incorrect solution. (like way off, they are too understaffed to take time and read or something? )
But for free etf buying and 4.95 trade, they are reducing costs in other areas. (labour, platforms and qualified people)
Their IQ thing didn’t even work on my computer for weeks when it came out. Very, very buggy and today, I think the old system was much stronger and reliable. The new IQ is always being upgraded, with it comes new bugs and long loading times.
But free etfs buying is FREE etf buying.. don’t expect any service with that.
I recently (last week) opened my first account with Questrade.
The application process was painless. I was able to electronically sign the documents with the exception of a trade authorization form (allowing me to make trades in my wife’s spousal RRSP). I uploaded our ID’s through their upload service. In all cases the account was updated quickly.
I used the online chat service twice to ask questions. The wait was 3-5min before I was connected to a live agent. The agents seemed knowledgeable and my questions were clearly answered.
I cannot comment on purchasing yet as I only sent my first funds yesterday and they have yet to show up in the account (they say this can take 1-4 business days depending on your bank).
Overall I am pleased with how smooth everything is going and hope this trend continues.
@Jungle: Exactly. Actually the best way I can describe Questrade is that I feel they have “execution issues”. Just about any time they launch or change something, there are small bugs. Examples: When they launched the IQ platform, lots of small bugs as you point out. When they switched to self-clearing, lots of small bugs, things delayed, etc. It’s as if they are pushing so hard to be leading-edge, be at the front of the pack, that they fail to thoroughly test what they are doing BEFORE they put it in a customer’s hands.
As I said, to their credit – at least for me – all of these things have eventually been corrected, and other than a small sense of annoyance and headshaking, I have suffered no material loss as a result of any of them. To me personally, it is worth putting up with in exchange for paying basically as close to zero in commissions as one could hope. Conversely, I suspect one would not be subjected to such small “hiccups” at other larger brokerages – but in exchange, you might pay $10 for every single trade. To each his own I guess.
I’m actually a bit nervous about Questrade going to zero commission on buying ETFs. I’d rather they charge $5 and be a sustainable business. Unless the active traders are supposed to pay to keep the lights on for all the people who might incur $0-$25 in commissions a year.
Overall, I like Questrade. Their service has been decent, sometimes longish waits, sometimes immediate response. I like their chat feature, which means you don’t have to listen to hold music if it does take 30 mins to get to a rep. I find you get clearer answers and your questions better understood when they are written vs spoken.
What I really like it their ability to hold USD balances in accounts. It amazes me that some of the more expensive brokerages don’t offer this.
On HXS, I wonder if Horizons read my mind. I was thinking of dropping them a note asking whether they had considered a non-hedged version of HXS. I think that was holding some people back, especially people who would have wanted to hold it in a taxable account or holding corp. It now seems like a very good solution. The avoided tax drag due to withholding more than covers the cost of the swap, and you’re left with a low-cost fund without the drag of currency hedging. And you can trade it in CAD, so no need to fuss with forex.
Oh, and I think this changes the calculus for what minimum size portfolio is needed to justify ETFs. It’s getting to be harder and harder to justify going with TD’s e-series MFs.
I’m extremely happy to hear that Questrade has matched the no-commission ETF purchase policy of Virtual Brokers. I was pretty close to switching to VB, but odds are that I will stay with Questrade now. I answered a customer survey from Questrade a couple of months ago where they seemed to be polling their clients about this exact question, and I suspect that they received a lot of feedback from their clients who were demanding this (and it’s likely that they were bleeding clients to VB).
I have made a grand total of one trade in my tiny Questrade RRSP account, and my experience has been very much like Danno’s so I won’t add to his already excellent description. For a buy-and-hold DIY investor without too many advanced needs, Questrade gets the job done.
My one annoyance with Questrade is the fact that in Q3 2012 they instituted a new policy where accounts worth less than $5000 are subjected to a $19.95/quarter inactivity fee if no trades are made. (If any subsequent trades occur, fee rebates matching the trading commissions are given.) Another reason I was thinking about moving to VB was to avoid this fee, but a much more sensible strategy would be to move funds from my company-sponsored RRSP into my Questrade account and build up my couch potato portfolio.
CCP,
I was on the verge of writing an e-mail myself about learning to accept the flow of the markets. Thanks for the blog entry that many of us were thinking about.
Even after accepting that you are happy with asset allocation, happy with having your money trading on the stockmarket, probably happy on days your net worth goes up (at least on paper), I’ve had to remember it’s all part of a long term goal and there could and probably will be a drop sometime again.
It actually should be comforting that every day the market goes up is one your portfolio probably went up as well. Makes it really easy to think you have done the right thing. On the downside, I know I’ll have only taken the risk the market as a whole experiences. No worries that that one stock I thought was amazing was for a company with managers who can’t navigate the next downturn. (Perhaps I will worry about central bankers the rest of my life.)
…
Since your previous blog about commission free ETF purchases, I still think many couch potato investors would benefit from seeing how few holdings they have and what the actual dollar cost would be to rebalance once a year ($50-70?) . That’s the kind of bill I can invoice myself and repay as savings to my investment account. It’s cheaper than telecommunications, or hydro, or insurance premiums.
I know it isn’t traditional to leave that cost out of calculating annualized returns, yet it isn’t that hard to correct the loss through savings at “Me, inc.”
I’ve been with Questrade for a few years now, and I’ve never had any real issues with them. Any questions have been answered within minutes via their live chat. Mind you, I don’t do anything crazy (an average of one purchase a month, and hardly any sells), and don’t use any of their advanced features or trading platforms (most of which result in additional fees).
The only thing I’ve noticed is that deposits from my bank account take about 2-3 days to clear. Somewhat annoying, but not a major problem. Another issue concerns the deposit of the CESG for RESP accounts — this usually takes about 3 months or so, but I’m not sure if that’s due to the federal government being slow in their payments of the CESG, or an actual problem with Questrade.
Just opened a Questrade account, it ended up taking almost 2 months, due to lost paperwork on their end, etc… I seemed to get pretty fast service when calling in or doing the online chat. Anyway, it is now set up and working and I have placed my first trade. Overall I am happy with it and exstatic now that there are zero fees to buy ETFs!
CCP, any thoughts on the best strategy to enter the market? I am not overly concerned with timing the market since that is impossible. But I am always hesitant to go all-in with a cash position. Then again, average-in over time seems physiologically better but incurs more trading costs (unless you are with the free ETF brokerages) and I don’t see how this would actually provide improved returns anyway.
@Michael: I can’t tell you how often I’ve got that same question recently: it will be the subject of my next MoneySense column, and I may also address it in future blog posts. Briefly, the math favours going all-in, but if it’s a big sum and averaging in makes you more comfortable, that’s fine, so long as you have a schedule and you don’t plan on moving in more “when it feels right.” Because as I argue in today’s post, it will never feel right.
I wrote about this in the Toronto Star a while back:
http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/2011/04/17/why_a_lump_sum_investment_beats_a_little_every_month.html
This is good news regarding Questrade. Competition is always a good thing. Hopefully the bigger bank discount brokerages will feel the price pressure eventually and slowly lower their commissions more so or eventually offer the “free to buy any etf” if they start to lose enough clients to the likes of Questrade or VB.
I’d like to puck up on Andrew F’s comment above: “I’m actually a bit nervous about Questrade going to zero commission on buying ETFs. I’d rather they charge $5 and be a sustainable business.”
As a customer of any business, I’m always interested in how they make money. If I open an account with a brokerage and they charge me no administration fee and no fee to buy or sell securities, how are they sustaining themselves? What incentive do they have to provide me with good customer service?
Everyone loves to get something for nothing, but what is the real price of free?
I’ve been a Questrade client for 8 months and have been generally pleased with the service and availability.
With that said, I would have appreciated had they given existing clients notice of the upcoming change in no fee purchases considering I just set my couch potatoe portfolio not 2 weeks before the announcement. Now I’m debating discussing rebates with them and see what they say.
The best part about HXS dropping hedging is that the Scotia and Qtrade already have HXS as commission free ETFs. If Horizons had created a new ETF, it wouldn’t have been commission free. Fantastic!
@CCP & Andrew F: I absolutely hear that argument, but let me provide the counterpoint. Technology/innovation/efficiency naturally drives the cost of many things, from goods to services, lower and lower, and this should be greeted with optimism, not trepidation. Wantonly agreeing to pay more because you assume that “you must get what you pay for” is the same dangerous phenomenon that leads people to overpay for goods & services everywhere, when a less expensive one may be 100% as functional. Is a Lexus really that much more reliable than a Toyota? Gucci purse anyone?
Ultimately every business, Questrade too, exists to make a profit. We have to assume that they know how to do this. If I am not paying any fees, then it must be that I am be subsidized by others with “more expensive” trading habits… and I am 100% okay with that. :-)
@Danno: Of course, technology is driving prices down and that’s a great thing. It wasn’t all that long ago that people used to pay a full-service brokerage $200 to make a stock. I love that we can do this online now for $5 or $10. But that’s not the same as zero.
I don’t think there’s any question that active traders are subsidizing buy-and-hold index investors, and I’m fine with that too. But I’m not sure I agree “we have to assume that they know how to do this.” There are many examples of companies that have driven themselves out of business by offering unsustainable deals.
Thanks spud! Why should I choose VTI over VFV, ZSP or HXS?
@Russell: VTI covers the broad US market (3,000+ stocks) , while the other three only hold large caps. VTI is also more tax-efficient in an RRSP, since you’re exempt from the withholding taxes.
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/09/20/foreign-withholding-tax-which-fund-goes-where/
However, VFV and ZSP allow you to trade in Canadian dollars, which is likely to be far cheaper in terms of transaction costs.
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/12/17/how-much-are-you-paying-for-us-dollars/
HXS is usually only appropriate in taxable accounts, and you have to be be comfortable with the swap structure.
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2011/06/06/understanding-swap-based-etfs/
Correct me if I’m wrong, but does this mean that Horizon’s HXS will now be the only unhedged, Canadian S&P 500 index ETF that invests *directly* in American stocks rather than in an counterpart American ETF? I’m thinking about the potential US withholding taxes if I invest in HXS in my RRSP.
With reference to this posting:
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/09/20/foreign-withholding-tax-which-fund-goes-where/
It looks to me like HXS is a type “A” investment, while the similar BMO and Vanguard offerings are type “D”.
@Cory: Actually it is ZSP that holds the stocks directly (type A). VFV is type D. HXS is in a unique category. It does not invest in the stocks directly: it uses a swap structure. My understanding is that this swap structure is not subject to the withholding taxes on dividends.
It’s important to understand that, in terms of withholding taxes, it really doesn’t matter which one you use in a non-registered account, since the tax is always recoverable. In an RRSP, the withholding tax is lost with both VFV and ZSP: it doesn’t matter whether the stocks are held directly or not. HXS might not be subject to the withholding tax, but is 30 bps more expensive than VFV and ZSP (because of the swap fee), so it’s wash. The most tax-efficient choice in an RRSP is a US-listed ETF.
Don’t feel bad if this sounds baffling: it confuses everyone. :)
Isn’t HXS better in taxable accounts, seeing as it converts ‘other income’ foreign dividends into tax-deferred capital gains, thus compounding at a higher rate (especially for those facing high MTRs).
Oh, and I think this changes the calculus for what minimum size portfolio is needed to justify ETFs. It’s getting to be harder and harder to justify going with TD’s e-series MFs.
Andrew, you still have to factor in the convenience of buying mutual funds. Free or not, to buy an ETF you have to login and make the purchase each time. With a mutual fund, you set up the purchase plan once and then you don't have to do anything ever again.
… not to mention the fact that with TD e-series (or any mutual fund), you can buy fractional units. With ETFs you have to buy whole units which doesn’t always work that well for someone who wants to invest a round dollar amount per month.
@Andrew F: Yes, you’re correct about HXS’s tax-efficiently in terms of recharacterizing the foreign income. I meant that thee is no difference between VFV and ZSP in a taxable account: whether the stocks are held directly or via an underlying ETF doesn’t matter when it comes to withholding taxes.
@Mike H: I tend to agree with you. There is a lot of value in the convenience and discipline imposed by regular contributions to the e-Series funds. To me that is far more important than saving 10 bps on MERs, especially on smaller accounts.
If you’re following an asset allocation, you shouldn’t be buying the same funds in the same proportions each month (DCA), you should be using the new contributions to top up the most underweight fund vs your target allocation.
And nothing stops you from making regular deposits to your brokerage account. Logging in once a month or quarter or so to make a trade seems like a pretty minor inconvenience vs the paperwork/transfer fees of porting your portfolio to ETFs at some point in the future. It’s actually no more work that maintaining your AA with MFs.
Hey CCP, medium-term reader, first time poster here. So first of all thanks for the great blog!
@Mike H and CCP, despite the two caveats offered (convenience and whole-unit purchasing), I would think that for someone like me with a <$50,000 portfolio currently engaged with your Global Couch Potato "Option 2", saving 0.09% on the MER by switching to "Option 1" might now make sense. Unless I'm missing something, it represents a worthwhile savings on even a portfolio in the $10-15,000 range, no? I am making deposits by-weekly and I don't anticipate taking any money out of the funds (incuring transaction costs) for some time, so I am personally tempted to switch from e-series to the Questrade offering..
Does Questrade have a systematic investment plan, like Waterhouse does? That way, you can just tell them what to buy and make sure you put cash in the account, via automatic bill payment.
Also regarding sustainable business, Questrade is still charging ECN and sale fees for Etfs. Not really 100% free trade, in and out.
If someone make the switch to Questrade or VB vs a other broker that charge 10$ a trade, they either make to much trade a year or got a porfolio too small to justified investing in ETF vs e-series. 10$ represent only a MER 0,1% on a 10 000$ trade on the first year.
Someone shouldn’t under-estimated service espicially is you try to pull out a Nobert Gambit. When I pull the trigger last August to convert in US all my 50 000$ RRSP at the RBC, I was glad they could help on the phone and do it for me. Because at the time the web site didn’t allow me to sell DLR on the US side by myself. They never question why I wanted to do this and never told me that I wansn’t allow to do it.
That trade probably make save the equivalent of many year of free ETF at Questrade or VB. I read that a VB they don’t even allow you to journal over the US side. This just alone cancel the free ETF buy benefit.
I had always wanted to buy HXS but I had two reservations: the currency hedging and the swap fee. Now taken away one problem!
By the way, you still have to pay the “spread” commissions on the “free” ETFs although these can be minor for small purchases. In addition, for US ETFs you’ll pay currency conversion fees.
I have a question that I got since a while. When i look VTI vs a S&P 500 ETF why each time a look at the price VTI almost always do better. Do you think there a good chance that a brodband market will do better than the S&P 500 in the long run?
I’ve opened RRSP & TFSA accounts for my spouse and I with Questrade just over a year ago and there have been no issues at all. I have also noticed several improvements in the interface and system since then. Nothing but positive things to say about them. You can’t see your balances after 10pm since the system goes down for updating at that time, but live chat has always answered my questions effectively. The no-commission ETF purchasing is going to put a nail in the coffin for index mutual funds for sure.
And nothing stops you from making regular deposits to your brokerage account. Logging in once a month or quarter or so to make a trade seems like a pretty minor inconvenience vs the paperwork/transfer fees of porting your portfolio to ETFs at some point in the future. It’s actually no more work that maintaining your AA with MFs.
Andrew, do you really think that logging in once a month and making several purchases is more convenient than doing an occasional transfer?
What I do is make my regular purchases (automatically) in mutual funds and then every so often (ie 2 years) I transfer it all to my Questrade ETF account. I adjust the contribution mix once in a while if my asset allocation is out of whack.
Transferring money between brokers is pretty easy – it’s the account setup that is the hassle.
Perhaps we should discuss this over butter chicken….
@Jungle: I believe some former Claymore (now iShares) and some Horizons ETFs are available with a preauthorized contribution plan. But these plans have not seemed to catch on: I don’t think the brokerages like them very much, and they really are clunky to manage because you can only buy whole shares.
@Jim: The S&P 500 includes only large caps, which make up about 70% of the broad market. The 30% or so that VTI allocates to mid and small cap stocks likely does raise the expected return slightly, though only very slightly. The Russell 3000 outperformed the S&P 500 by about 60 bps annually over the last 10 years, but over the last 20 and 25 years the difference is only about 7 bps.
It took almost a month to open an account with virtual brokers even though the application had been prescreened before submitting it. Excitement on investing gone:)
It is funny.. just before I saw your post I read an article in Macleans where author claims that we are at the beginning of bull market that will last 10 years (not really sure where this period is coming from). The main arguments are that US, Europe and other economies already hit the bottom and companies became a lot more efficient through reduced costs. The fact that everyone suggests that stocks have no way, but to go up scares me to be honest…
@Andrew: Actually, it’s been shown that due to markets’ tendency to revert to the mean, historically it has been more efficient to rebalance annually or every two years than more often. So not only is putting the same percentage into each fund monthly then rebalancing annually more convenient, historically it has also provided slightly higher returns that topping up the ones that lag your desired allocation.
Note that this does not take into account the added trading costs or taxes involved in rebalancing, so in reality your suggested approach may well outperform, especially in a taxable account. And of course there’s no guarantee that the historical trend of mean-reversion over a couple of years will persist. But my point is that systematic contributions with annual rebalancing should generally be at least as good as ‘continual rebalancing’ with new funds, and is a lot easier for many people to handle.
I use SaxoBank and they are fantastic. Great customer service, fast and efficient. They are probably not the cheapest discount brokerage but considering I am a Canadian expat, there are very few options available to us. Most US-based discount brokerages, won’t allow Canadians and Canadian ones like TD e-series are difficult unless you are a Canadian resident.
Saxo is a great alternative. Trades are around $15 for any stocks bought on the NYSE but a steep $25 for anything on the TSE.
Thanks for the HXS info. I’ve been really surprised how small it has remained in comparison to HXT. Volume has also been abysmal, the few times I’ve purchased this ETF my buys accounted for 50+% of the day’s volume.
S&P500 coverage of the total US market is more than 70%. Not sure why I had 85% in memory, this document says 80%. http://us.spindices.com/documents/additional-material/sp-500-trifold.pdf
@gsp: The low volume on HXS is definitely something to be aware of, though it’s not a major problem as long as you use limit orders.
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/09/13/an-etf-pricing-puzzle/
I was just going from memory with the 70% estimate—and obviously my memory was unreliable. Clearly that number will change a bit from year to year.
@CCP It’s like you read my mind. Excellent topic and discussion!
I have HXS and love it. I’ll be seriously considering HXS for the new investment money. The cost of currency conversion was about 30 basis points thru DLR (another 30 to bring it back to Canadian). The forex savings plus the fewer trades and trade fees with reinvesting dividends, plus eliminating the risk of IRS estate tax … HXS seems like a superior product for Canadians in many respects compared to VTI. Any chance they might change their benchmark to the Russell 3000?
BTW The new CCP logo is nice, but I still like that potato on the couch logo. Long live the spud!
@Ryan: HXS is good product, and it will be better after it drops the hedging. But at 45 bps (including the swap fee) the cost is significant: if all you want is no forex, automatic dividend reinvestment and no risk of US estate taxes, then the TD e-Series is probably a better choice. Its real benefit is its tax-efficiency. In an RRSP, especially, VTI is preferable if you can trade US dollars cheaply. (Disclosure: I hold both HXS and VTI.)
Surprised that you found the spread on DLR so high. Typically it’s 2 cents on share price around $10, which is a 20-bps round trip, not 60 bps.
So I really do hear you guys on the “quality of service” point, and as I said above, fully acknowledge that if I were either a “power user” and/or someone that was new/uneasy/required a lot of support, I may be inclined to go somewhere other than Questrade. That said, I really think this commission-free ETF thing is completely and entirely good, and feel that there should be no cause for concern whatsoever.
Look, TONS of businesses have a loss-leader. They knowingly give you one product at a loss to get you in the door, because they know that once you’re in, you’re likely to buy others. McDonalds will give me free coffee all day. They’re not stupid businesspeople or bad at math – quite the contrary, they “give” me the coffee because they know some probably very predictable percentage of people can’t help but buy a breakfast sandwich while they’re there.
This ETF thing from Questrade is probably just as brilliant. They have lots of ways to make money from me (sales, commissions on other trades, min account fees, xfer out fees, etc), and they know that most likely, a very good percentage of the folks who avail themselves of the “commission-free” ETF purchase will likely buy a McMuffin or Hashbrown once they’re there, too. Sure, a small percentage will come for the free coffee, buy nothing, and leave – but as readers of this site should know all-too-well, the percentage of investors that are passive and just buy a few ETFs every year is unfortunately probably rather small. Believe me, if 100% of the people who came in the door at McD’s just took the free coffee and left, they’d stop doing it. You have to assume Questrade is smarter than to bankrupt itself doing this, just as McDonald’s isn’t going to bankrupt itself over an altruistic committment to free coffee. That just isn’t the reality of how it works, and I’m 100% okay with enjoying free ETF purchases because some other folks can’t resist a delicious Egg McMuffin. :-)
I’ve been happy with Questrade. Yes, you get what you pay for, but with index investing, I have found you don’t really need much assistance anyhow.
After all, isn’t this the reason you’re doing index investing, because you want cut the middle-man?
Banking at a place like PC Financial for day to day transactions can also help eliminate costs.
Hi CCP, in light of impending interest rate hikes, how would you advise a young investor putting his first $20,000 in an RRSP with respect to fixed income. If such an investor is tolerant of risk, would it not be more suitable to allocate 100% to equity or alternatives and to purchase the bond portion of his portfolio when high interest rates depress prices?