It’s Friday once more and with it brings a whole slew of discount brokerage related news and activities. As the calendar rolled over into a new month, there was the usual hubbub with new deals being offered and updated by some major discount brokerages. This past week also saw one major Canadian discount brokerage sponsor an investor education roadshow, and another celebrate a milestone birthday with a launch of some mobile trading platforms.
Deals Galore
In the October count of discount brokerage deals, there are more deals happening from major (bank owned) discount brokerages than have taken place in the recent past. Large discount brokerages such as RBC Direct Investing and HSBC InvestDirect that historically have been less visible with their promotions, are now offering some competitive deals.
To keep all of the deal action straight, there’s a new feature in the deals section called ‘deal analytics’. This section will take the deal info one step deeper to provide a quick way to digest all of the deal information. Stay tuned as this exciting feature will continue to evolve into an awesome tool for investors looking for a deal when opening a discount brokerage account.
Will That Be #ForHere or #ToGo?
BMO InvestorLine has had a pretty busy week. On Friday of last week, they officially turned 25 years old and like most 25 year olds, they are becoming obsessed with mobile phones. Earlier in the week BMO InvestorLine had a big focus on their new mobile trading apps/platforms by pairing their latest deal with the launch of their mobile platform. In one of the most unique promotions from a discount broker, BMO InvestorLine is offering 250 commission-free mobile trades (good for up to 2 months of trading). For those with opening balances of over $100,000 there is also a $250 cash back offer. Checkout the deals section for more information.
On the Road Again
One of the most recognizable figures on Canadian business television, Larry Berman, kicked off his 12 city cross country tour this past week in Calgary. These sessions will be promoting investor education, his investor education course and his company. One of the major discount brokerage sponsors of the event is Scotia iTrade. They’ve paired up with Larry Berman to provide the platform (FlightDesk) on which audience members can see Berman do his famous “Berman’s Call” style stock analysis in person. Look out for a review of the session that landed in Vancouver coming up shortly. To find out more information about the events, check out the schedule here.
Interactive Brokers Metrics
As they do every month, Interactive Brokers has released the latest set of trading activity statistics for September 2013 showing that on many of the key metrics, such as DARTs (daily average revenue trades), margin loans and number of accounts are all up well over last year at this point and incrementally up over last month. For the active trading segment of the market Interactive Brokers is definitely proving hard to catch and with recent changes to Interactive Brokers Canada, the same might become true on our side of the border.
That’s it for this week. With all that’s been going on in the news, this market is about to get far more interesting before it gets boring. Have a great weekend!