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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – Oct. 26th 2012

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 out our fee comparison page here).  We looked at the latest news story evolving in markets, complicated orders, and the bigger issue of ‘fairness’ to all players the market.  An interesting twist to this comes from the exchange traded fund (ETF) industry and how major stock exchanges, such as the NASDAQ, are considering allowing a particular order type specifically for ETFs.  This latest turn might be an effort to restore waning investor confidence in stock markets and investing.

Lastly, just before press, there was a great piece published by Rob Carrick in the Globe and Mail (Three smart ways to find an online broker) in which SparxTrading.com gets mentioned.  Also included in this article are a couple of other sites to do some of your research on.

Best Canadian Discount Brokerage Tweet of the Week:

The best discount brokerage tweet for this week comes from @Jitneytrade for passing along a colorful article by author Michael Sincere explaining what options are.  You can read the tweet here.

Event Horizon

As mentioned in our last edition of the roundup, this Saturday October 27th (tomorrow) TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage will be putting on its Direct Investing Expo in Vancouver. There will be a number of speakers including Bob Gorman, Chief Portfolio Strategist for TD Waterhouse.  For more details click here.

Also, around the corner are a couple of other investment seminars, including an Evening with Michael Campbell featuring Tyler Bollhorn, taking place in Calgary (October 29th) and Vancouver (October 30th). Tyler will be talking about his new book, The Mindless Investor as well as giving signed copies of the book to attendees. The Small-Cap Conference (November 6th) in Vancouver just announced their speaker list and for those folks who pre-register via SparxTrading.com, they get a great bonus gift! For registration details, click here.

The People Have Spoken

The comments section on the Michael Sincere article mentioned in the Jitneytrade tweet also got some readers to chime in on whether or not options are easy as the article might suggest. Check out all the comments here.

Canadian Discount Brokerage Jobs

On the hiring front, there are a couple of more positions that Canadian discount brokerages are trying to fill. Sometimes the hiring pools can be indicative of things to come, as we see from the job positions popping up this week.

Qtrade recently announced that they’re looking to hire a Content Strategist and writer.  Qtrade has been  a bit quieter in the social media arena, but it looks like they’re prepping to step into it along with these other discount brokerages.

Questrade is looking for some extra hands in the form of New Accounts Specialists to help for the upcoming RSP rush (yup it’s around the corner).  If you’ve ever been curious to know what it’s like to work as a service agent for Questrade or what it is that they are tasked to do for you as a client, check out the posting we found here.

RBC Direct Investing is also looking to add an Assistant Manager to their Investor Centre staff in downtown.  Interestingly, according to the posting, “main objectives of this position and all activities conducted within the Investor Centres are to drive new client acquisition, consolidate assets from existing clients, and to increase the profitability of each client.”

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