Discount Brokerage News
This roundup features deal spotting from Disnat and TD Direct Investing at the Cambridge House World Resource Investment Conference, a new review of Qtrade and news about a costly mistake made by a Questrade trader. In addition we take a quick peek at the latest ranking of Canadian discount brokerages.
Deal Me In
TD Direct Investing is quietly launching the new free trades deals. This is an interesting move on TD’s part given that they’ve largely stayed away from offering free trade promotions and because of the timing/roll-out of the deal. The “50 free trades” promotion was launched towards the end of May and expires mid-July. Check out our deals section for more info.
Also in the deals section is an updated promotion from Disnat that was being offered at their SCATE tour and at the last World Resource Investment Conference in Vancouver this past week.
Positive Feedback
Money Smarts blog posted an interesting review of Canadian discount brokerage Qtrade earlier this week. The review contains some feedback from account holders, and it appears that customer service was a point most (including the article’s author) agreed was a strong point of the Qtrade experience. Interestingly, Qtrade did not perform nearly as strongly on the Dalbar Direct Brokerage Service Experience evaluation as other Canadian discount brokerages did. The Dalbar study directly measures customer service and so the difference between what many consumer posts suggest and what some other studies also show
False Start on the Offense
Earlier this month, Questrade was in the penalty box with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) for trading actions one of its employees took between August of 2009 and February 2010. According to the decision document, the trader was found to have “entered orders on the Toronto Stock Exchange that he ought reasonably to have known could reasonably be expected to create an artificial bid price for Quebecor Inc. Class A securities” while Questrade was penalized for not having adequate controls in place to prevent such practices from occurring. Both the trader and Questrade were fined for these infractions.
Joining the Ranks
The June 2013 edition of MoneySense magazine is on newsstands and features a review of Canada’s Best Discount Brokerages. This is yet another in the growing list of discount brokerage rankings. The rankings themselves are actually compiled by Surviscor, so the data is also available for free on Surviscor’s site too. Check out our article regarding the numerous Canadian discount brokerage rankings in which we try to make sense of those who claim to be “Canada’s best discount brokerage.”
Interestingly, JD Power’s Investor Satisfaction Award survey is also currently being deployed to Canadian investors. The survey is generally conducted in the late spring/early summer time frame and results should be released in the fall.