Category: Discount Brokerage News

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 23, 2016

Now that fall is here, the weather may be cooling down but the competition at Canadian discount brokerages is definitely heating up. Rather than sitting back Canadian online brokers are firing on all cylinders, from deals and marketing to technological revolutions.

This edition of the roundup launches with a look at yet another new deal from an online brokerage that might shake things up for offers yet to come to market. Next we take a look at what one big bank-owned brokerage is doing to drum up interest in their online offering. From there we take a look at one brokerage’s strategy to bring the DIY investor experience of the future into reality. Lastly we wrap up with a look at the latest chatter on Twitter and around the Canadian investing forums.

HSBC InvestDirect Antes Up

September keeps on getting more lucrative for DIY investors looking to open an online trading account. Already this month, there has been an uptick in deals and promotions being offered from Canadian online brokerages and this past week yet another brokerage jumped onto the promotion bandwagon.  HSBC InvestDirect has once again stepped off the sidelines and launched a cash back promotion ranging from $88 to $988 depending on the amount individuals deposit.

The latest promotion by HSBC InvestDirect now brings the number of active advertised offers up to 24 but more importantly, it puts a very competitive cash-back offer on the table for investors to consider.

Source: HSBC InvestDirect website screenshot

Recently, there have been a number of offers being put forward by Canadian discount brokerages however they have tended to be commission-free trade promotions or contest-type offers. The field for cash-back offers was certainly thin (compared to points last year) so the $88 for a $25,000 deposit is the highest cash-back offer at this deposit level. In fact, the HSBC InvestDirect offer even surpasses the cash back amount being put forward by BMO InvestorLine at the $100,000 mark and, from a total value perspective, eclipses BMO InvestorLine for deposits of $500,000 or more.

It should be noted that BMO InvestorLine’s offer is a combination of $200 cash back and 20 commission-free trades, so the total face value of the commission free trades (approximately $200) makes this offer a very competitive one all around.

Another interesting observation about HSBC Invest Direct’s latest promotion is that it runs through to the end of 2016. This duration is somewhat longer than competitor firms that have put offers into the market until the end of October or November.

Thus, not only has HSBC InvestDirect raised the stakes for other brokerages looking to incentivize new clients into considering them, they’ve also doubled down by making this offer available through the beginning of winter. This is good news for DIY investors because any subsequent offers from other brokerages are going to have to be more appealing than the current cold, hard cash being offered by the latest HSBC InvestDirect promo. With only a week to go before the end of September, there is still time for other brokerages to launch even more at investors so we’ll be watching the space closely to see what happens next.

Cut to Commercial

It takes money to make money, or so the saying goes. It’s therefore interesting (and a tad ironic) to see the latest move from bank-owned brokerage Scotia iTRADE as they start to ramp up their marketing and advertising efforts to put their brand back on the map with DIY investors.

This past week, in addition to their Twitter feed starting to feature big, bold, and very red picture cards, Scotia iTRADE also launched a series of video commercials on their YouTube channel. Ranging from quirky commercials to the quick ‘infomercial’ primers on the market, it looks like Scotia iTRADE has been busy building a video presence after quite a long absence in that space. We’ve bundled them into the playlist below.

What is interesting is that there has been a recent push back into video commercials, with BMO’s robo-advisor service (SmartFolio) and now with video coming back at Scotia iTRADE. Why this is relevant is because these are not inexpensive marketing choices to make, so it appears Scotia iTRADE is banking on the ads moving the needle on consumer awareness and buy in of their brand.

The ads themselves are amusing and well put together so there’s likely to be a positive reaction. Nonetheless, the bigger picture is that Scotia iTRADE appears to be spending more resources (read: money) in order bring Scotia iTRADE back into the ring to be considered. With the addition of new deals/promotions and now the latest spend in advertising, the onboarding engine is getting itself in gear.

Canadian discount brokerages are all trying to figure out where to place their marketing dollars to get the best ROI. For Scotia iTRADE, they’ve continued to resist lowering their standard commission fees, choosing instead to try other tactics. As a result, while other brokerages have lowered standard commissions, Scotia iTRADE continues to have the highest standard commission fees for smaller (<50K in assets) investors.

Whether or not these ads fly or flop, it’s a sign that given the choice to go big or go home, Scotia iTRADE is definitely betting that being big and bold will keep them in the discount brokerage race.

BMO InvestorLine Looking for an Edge

When putting together the weekly roundups, there are all kinds of interesting things that pop across our radar. In the case of the Canadian online brokerage industry (and the financial service space generally), one thing is abundantly clear: technology is the big battleground.

BMO InvestorLine recently posted (yet another) job posting that caught our attention, this time for a senior technical specialist. That they were hiring more IT wasn’t so exciting, however their vision for InvestorLine (and adviceDirect) to develop “bleeding-edge technology and the next generation of Online Self Direct Investment and adviceDirect platforms.”

Screenshot from https://bmo.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en_GB&job=957988&src=JB-10207

Fortunately, if there’s one group that can spend the resources needed to take on the wave of fintech firms and massive IT budgets of their competitors, it’s bank-owned brokerages. Of course, this past year (and week) has shown DIY investors that bigger brokerages aren’t necessarily without bugs when trying to roll out new trading platforms or features.

Historically, banks have been conservative and reluctant to roll out platforms or technology that is too new because of the risks associated with them. Clearly, the risk of being left behind technologically or the risk of losing market share has spurred BMO InvestorLine (and its peers) to innovate much more quickly. It should be exciting to see where the “bleeding-edge” takes online trading next.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

It looks like a rough start to fall 2016 for brokerages this week on Twitter – Scotia iTRADE in particular as their website crawled to a halt. Bitten by the tech bugs this week were BMO InvestorLine, Questrade, RBC Direct Investing and Scotia iTRADE.

From the Forums

Yay or Nay to Interactive Brokers

An interesting thread on reddit’s Personal Finance Canada section caught our attention this week from a Qtrade Investor client looking to jump ship to Interactive Brokers. It would be a move to a very different experience online so it was interesting to read what insight Interactive Brokers users had to offer.

 

Into the Close

That’s a wrap for another edition of the roundup. If you’re lucky enough to get good weather this weekend, hope you can make the most of it. For the rest of us, guess we’ll just have to watch hockey, football and get a bit of a break from the crazy debate week next week. Of course, for those that want a bit of that crazy ahead of time, here’s the hamdog. Seriously.

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 16, 2016

For Isaac Newton a falling apple sparked inspiration about gravity. For traders and investors this week, Apple defied gravity and seemed to spark a rally in a falling market. The lesson seems to be clear: don’t fight the obvious. Markets for DIY investing are clearly giving signals to Canadian discount brokerages and this week it was interesting to see which brokerages are making moves to be on the right side of the next big thing.

In this edition of the roundup, we review the deals that drew one bank-owned brokerage off the sidelines and into the promo mix once more. Next we analyze some interesting research done on the Canadian robo-advisor marketplace and what that means for discount brokerages and robo-advisors alike. Following that we’ll take a quick scan of other news from Canadian discount brokers and then move onto the chatter on social media and investor forums.

Putting up Points

This past week, Scotia iTRADE got back on the discount brokerage deals & promotions wagon by launching a pair of offers at DIY investors.

Always looking for creative (read: cost effective) ways to bring new clientele on board, the offers put forward are “free trades” or a combination of free trades and SCENE points, the reward program that offers collectors free movies. Rather than doling out cash or gadgets, this strategy can help keep iTRADE’s cost of bringing on a new client to a minimum.

Scotia iTRADE is not alone in their use of points programs as an incentive to attract clients. RBC Direct Investing has recently started to ramp up its marketing of being able to use points towards trading commissions and CIBC Investor’s Edge also has a points for trading commissions offer.

For iTRADE in particular, however, the appetite for DIY investors to be drawn in by the prospect of free trades, free movies or discounts at Swiss Chalet (one of several CARA owned restaurant chains which SCENE points can be used at) might be limited. Nonetheless if Scotia iTRADE is high on a DIY investor’s list of possible choices, some free trades with a side of fries is a bonus.

Scotia iTrade’s second new promo is a classic commission-free trade offer. The range of free trades being offered starts at 75 trades for a deposit between $25,000 and $49,999 and goes up to 250 commission-free trades for deposits of $250,000 or more. Commission-free trades are good for up to 90 days.

In both the deals, it is interesting to see that Scotia iTRADE is inviting users to get an offer code even though the offer code is actually in the terms and conditions (which investors should be reading!). This is something that other brokerages, such as Questrade and Virtual Brokers, have also done in order to capture prospective client information when pitching a deal.

As we have observed already this month, September is shaping up to be a busier month across many discount brokerages. These latest offers from Scotia iTRADE last well into the latter part of the fall, so it will be interesting to see how other discount brokerages step up and challenge a crowded deals pool.

 

Reviewing Robo-Advisors

Earlier this week, financial services research firm DALBAR Canada officially released their report on how robo-advisor firms handle bringing on new clients.

Their robo-advisor research report takes a comprehensive look at the already crowded robo-advisor industry in Canada. Data from the report was gathered from a series of mystery shops in which clients were asked to document the process of opening an account. The details of this interaction were thoroughly analysed and an interesting portrait of the Canadian robo-advisor space emerged.

A series of articles have already been published about the report including one by Jonathan Chevreau of FindependenceHub.com and the other by Rudy Luukko for Morningstar Canada signalling that there is a great deal of curiousity about whether or not robo-advisor firms are measuring up to the hype that surrounds the robo-advisor model.

Chevreau’s piece is particularly interesting because it contains reactions to the report from senior executives at robo-advisors profiled in the report whereas Luukko’s article looks at some of the key findings of the report in detail, concluding that Canadian robo-advisors still have some ways to go in the service department before they live up to the hype.

Several Canadian online brokerages have already started to actively pursue robo-advisor or robo-advisor-like services. Labelled as “digital advice” by industry members, players such as BMO SmartFolio, Questrade’s Portfolio IQ, and National Bank Direct Brokerage’s InvestCube are already in this space with more surely to follow.

What’s clear from the DALBAR robo-advisor report is that there is still quite a bit that the “fintech” firms have to get right. Having a ‘robot’ manage your money is supposed to make things less emotional – which DALBAR’s Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior would endorse. That said, the relationship people have with their money, and more importantly with who is handling it, are what will ultimately define the success of the digital advice movement.

(Full disclosure: Sparx Publishing Group, the parent of SparxTrading.com was significantly involved in the production of the report and DALBAR Canada is a client of Sparx Publishing Group)

Highlights from across Social Media

This weekend the MoneyShow rolls into Toronto. Featuring a who’s who lineup of speakers on personal finance, the show is sure to attract the attention of investors, many of whom are inundated with stories of Canadian real estate, falling oil prices and the upcoming US election.

Among the exhibitors at this year’s show are a number of Canadian discount brokerages. Here are some snapshots of the National Bank Direct Brokerage team and Virtual Brokers’ outreach team at the show.

 

Aaaand we couldn’t let this one sneak by – every seasoned trader has done the wrong ticker (aka fat finger) trade before – apparently it happens to social media folks too!

We also learned from Twitter this week that Virtual Brokers was hanging out at the University of Toronto downtown campus, likely to pitch their Kick-start investment program to students who are now thinking about their lives as adults.

Finally, the team at Questrade shared an article interesting article written about them in Canadian Business Week which chronicles some of the backstory to the company and how far they’ve managed to evolve since their launch in 1999.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

Lots on the menu for this week. Brokerages mentioned were BMO InvestorLine, CIBC Investor’s Edge, Questrade, Scotia iTRADE, TD Direct Investing & Virtual Brokers

From the Forums

Qtrade getting noticed

Despite the positive coverage received in the Globe and Mail, it’s not often that forum chatter turns to Qtrade Investor. That might be changing, however, thanks to their young investor pricing change and the fact that many of the folks who frequent the forums are themselves younger investors. In this post from Canadian Money Forum there are a handful of interesting reports about what people think about Qtrade Investor.

Scotia iTRADE vs RBC Direct Investing

It’s not a common comparison, which is why this post (from reddit’s Personal Finance Canada subreddit) about choosing between two bank-owned brokerages caught our attention. An interesting mix of opinions worth a read for those considering either provider.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap on another wild week. Fall is just around the corner so enjoy the last few official days of the summer!

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 9, 2016

A famous football movie said sometimes life is a game of inches. As the busy season for investors and brokerages kicks off, it looks like there are lots of interesting changes, big and small, that are taking place in and around the brokerage industry, to win over new clients. From growing a client base to new leadership to new products or services, this week has a little bit of everything thrown in.

On the docket this week, we’ll take a look at a lot of little developments across the board. Starting first with stats from one independent discount brokerage that shows they’re making strides with investors. Next we highlight one online brokerage that’s looking for a new vision and some leadership and what that reveals about their plans for the future. After that, we’ve got a new trading app launched from one Canadian brokerage who’s doubling down on mobile trading. From there we’ll take a look at the latest pitch being made to millennial investors and whether it’s a hit or a miss. And finally we’ll recap what DIY investors were chatting about on social media and in the investor forums.

Interactive Brokers’ mixed metrics

The stat sheet from Interactive Brokers’ August trading figures paints an interesting picture of the landscape for online brokerages. On the one hand, it looks like trading volume has significantly diminished compared to last year at the same time. A drop off of 22% on a year over year basis as well as a 4% decline compared to July’s figures suggests the volatility picture is very different this year than last. On the other hand, metrics such as margin loan balances, credit balances and most notably client accounts all continue to show growth compared to last year and last month.

 BMO InvestorLine looking for new president

What does it take to be the president of a Canadian online brokerage? It is an interesting question that was prompted by the recent online posting for a new president at BMO InvestorLine.

Longtime observers of the Canadian online brokerage space will note that senior leadership in the online brokerage space tends to have quite a bit of turnover. Within the past several years, however, BMO InvestorLine in particular has seen a number of individuals take the helm and so it is interesting to be able to take a look at what they’re hoping to bring in.

Aside from the expected components of being a solid leader, there appears to be a trend towards becoming increasingly technologically proficient and to a degree, prescient. To be able to craft a strategy for 3 to 5 years into the future takes a certain comfort level with seeing the big picture for the self-directed investing industry but also being able to track where and how technology will evolve for consumers who also happen to be investors, which is no easy ask.

To that end, it is telling that a core component to the strategy of BMO InvestorLine is to try to become a “technology leader”.

Ironically, this exchange on Twitter (also shown below) that happened just a few days ago showcases the jumping off point the new President is working from. This certainly suggests that there are some hearts, minds and browsers that need some adjusting before “technology leader” springs to mind for many DIY investors when thinking of BMO InvestorLine.

screengrab from Twitter

Regardless of who lands in the driver’s seat next, we’re happy to extend an invite to the BMO InvestorLine team (some of whom are regular readers of the roundup) or the future president to drop us a line if you’re interested in achieving some of your strategic objectives.

Desjardins Online Brokerage launches a new app

On the technology theme, earlier this month Desjardins Online Brokerage released a new app for its Disnat Classic clients on both iOS and Android.

The new mobile trading app adds another way in which to access the Desjardins Online Brokerage or Disnat online trading experience since there is already a mobile site that enables DIY investors to perform the essential functions of trading online.

Some key features of the app include streamlined account summaries, clean charting and an easy to use interface for placing orders or checking their status.

In terms of response, the early ratings in the respective app stores appears to be positive. With a user interface that appears modern and in line with better practices, users have given the app close to a 4.5 out 5-star rating on Android and 3.5 star rating for iOS – the new mobile experience has managed to score high praise (albeit with a small number of reviews) compared to other online brokerage mobile apps.

Active traders who use the Disnat Direct platform, however, are out of luck for the moment. Nevertheless, it appears that evolving the online user experience, especially on mobile, is definitely now on the radar and task list of the team at Desjardins Online Brokerage.

TD Direct Investing selling the sizzle

In a news release yesterday, TD Direct Investing shared some interesting data on what millennials seem to think about DIY investing.

The data, derived from a survey of about 1750 “millennials” which took place between February and March of this year, suggested that a lack of money and know-how were the key barriers to getting started with investing. Also, given the insane volatility at the time, it shows that timing market surveys on the stock market is also a tricky gig – but we digress.

According to TD Direct Investing, there are 3 tips (labelled the “ABC”) which they are hoping might inspire some younger investors to look more closely at the DIY investing world:

  1. Act Now
  2. Brush up on the basics
  3. Choose your own adventure

 

The nudge towards considering DIY investing comes at an interesting time for the wealth management landscape.

An increasing number of ‘millennial’ investors are being courted by and turning to robo-advisors, the digital wealth management solution that can cut out the tasks of having to act, learn or choose. Showcasing the benefits of DIY investing over and above the robo-advisor route won’t be an easy sell.

Robo’s aren’t the only challenge for Canada’s largest online brokerage either. It looks like they’re increasingly being surrounded by programs or promotions aimed squarely at the same audience they’re hoping to reach.

Last week we reported on Qtrade Investor launching a young investor pricing program as well as highlighting several other initiatives from online brokerages that are directly targeting ‘younger’ (aka millennial) investors.

In TD Direct Investing’s case, this press release might be the signal that they’re preparing to respond more emphatically to the changes going on in the DIY investing space, which should be an interesting set of adventures for all.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

On a short week it may have been a week to be short. Either way clients chimed in about some of the issues on their minds. Mentioned this week were BMO InvestorLine, Questrade, Scotia iTRADE and TD Direct Investing.

From the Forums

Drinking the not-so-Kool Aid

Well this is a new one. This post on reddit from one supposed bank-owned brokerage employee provides an interesting window into a) airing grievances about a job to the world and b) what happens with your trading accounts when you start working in the industry. Fascinating stuff.

What to do with 5K?

Crowdsourcing financial advice seems like an interesting approach to money management however it’s clearly a sign of the times. On this post from the Personal Finance Canada subreddit, one keen would-be investor wanted to know what the best route forward would be to deploy the hard earned cash.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap for this week’s roundup. Coming off the long weekend last weekend, it’s nice to have this one show up a little sooner. For sports fans, it’s a great weekend with football back on the timetable north and south of the border, the Paralympics in Rio and hockey back in focus. Also it’s a welcome distraction from the nuttiness that was today’s trading day – and speaking of distractions, this post on Facebook should hopefully provide a welcomed dose of the chuckles. Have a great weekend!

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 2, 2016

September’s here and it’s all about the kids – well at least what some people consider to be kids anyway. After a summer spent huddled away figuring out what the ‘cool kids’ of investing may want, the Canadian discount brokerages have launched into September with some new features that are clearly aimed at winning the interest of millennials.

In this week’s roundup we start with a look at the latest deals and promotions activity from Canadian discount brokerages to see which deals dropped and which ones popped heading into the busy season for investors and brokerages alike. Next, we’ll take a look at the first in a series of exciting rollouts from one online brokerage that has upped the ante for firms interested in working with millennial investors. From there we’ll take a look at one bank-owned brokerage’s foray into commission-free ETF investing and what that means for DIY investors and other brokerages big and small. As usual, we’ll cap off the roundup with chatter from across Twitter and the Canadian investing forums.

Deals update

If this week is any indicator, the final stretch of 2016 will be an interesting one to watch, especially in terms of deals and promotions. To start September, the current landscape of promotional offers appears to be quite close to where things were in August, with 21 open offers available for DIY investors to choose from, slightly lower than the 23 there were last month.

At first blush it looks like Canadian discount brokerages are playing the busy fall stretch close to the vest. Case in point is the expiry date for a couple of key players’ offers.

BMO InvestorLine, for example, replaced their summer cash back offer with a much simpler cash back and commission-free trade “fall promotion.” Despite the length of the season, this offer is currently scheduled to expire on October 31st. As any good options trader knows, however, BMO InvestorLine has the right but not the obligation to let the offer expire, extend it or replace it with something different.

Another interesting expiry date was spotted on Desjardins Online Brokerage’s long standing $500 commission-credit offer. Previously this offer was set to expire at the end of August however it was extended yet again but this time only a month out until the end of September.

These maneuvers, however small, signal that the last stretch of 2016 still has some surprises. BMO InvestorLine, for example, will be rolling out new features so there may, in fact, be further related updates or incentives to coincide with that launch. Additionally, Desjardins Online Brokerage is now tied with Questrade in offering the most number of concurrent offers (there are four each in the categories we track). And, let’s not forget the fact that there are a dozen other brokerages that are constantly working to improve their position in the very competitive market for investors.

Another interesting observation coming into the new month is that Virtual Brokers has yet to roll out a new offer. If the past several months is an indicator, that won’t be the case for too long. Other noteworthy absences from the ‘commission-free’ or ‘free-trade’ categories this month include Scotia iTRADE.

There are also two other very exciting developments in the deals/promos section.

First, for investors, we’ve started to collect data on what kinds of deals are the most important to DIY investors. To fill out the survey click here – we’ll be publishing the results of this after the end of the month to see what incentive offers SparxTrading.com users are looking for.

The second exciting development is that we will be rolling out a more formal industry snapshot report (paid), aimed towards professionals who want to track what’s going on in the Canadian discount brokerage space.  Anyone interested in receiving the report can click here to let us know. We’ll notify you when we plan on going live.

Just two days into September, its already shaping up to be a month in which there are going to be many changes as well as the potential for deals activity to tick up based on the new features being rolled out at many of Canada’s discount brokerages.

Made for Millennials: Qtrade Launches Younger Investor Pricing

Big news coming out of Qtrade Investor this week as they rolled out a new pricing plan aimed at younger investors. Specifically, Qtrade is offering DIY investors aged 18 to 30 a break on commission pricing, no account minimums, and no quarterly administrative fees.

Screenshot from Qtrade Investor homepage

The move positions Qtrade well heading into the online brokerage rankings from the Globe and Mail this fall. Already a long-time favourite of Rob Carrick, the fact that Qtrade’s new pricing plan caters to the ‘millennial’ investor, a segment that gets particular focus in the Globe and Mail discount brokerage rankings, is sure to score points.

In terms of specifics, this new plan lowers the standard commission price for qualifying individuals to $7.75 per trade instead of the standard $8.75, (ECN fees are still charged with this plan). At Qtrade Investor this is a significant savings as the only other ways to get a lower commission price are to have at least $500,000 in assets with Qtrade or to trade at least 150 times per quarter. The biggest score with younger investors, however, will be absence of an account minimum balance and a waived account maintenance fee.

It is noteworthy to point out that while Qtrade Investor is not the only Canadian discount brokerage to waive fees based on age, they do offer the longest age range of their competitors, matching what Desjardins Online Brokerage (whose parent owns a significant portion in Qtrade) has done with their Broker@ge program for individuals aged 18 to 30.

Both Questrade and Virtual brokers offer to waive account maintenance fees for individuals however for Questrade the age limit is 25 and for Virtual Brokers it’s age 26. Interactive Brokers also offers a lower minimum account balance ($,3000 instead of $10,000) for individuals aged 25 and under. RBC Direct Investing also offers to waive its quarterly inactivity fee for individuals who have a student banking package (or who had one in the last 5 years), so while not by age, it is still geared towards younger investors.

As with all good things, there usually is a catch and in the case of the ‘young investor’ program at Qtrade Investor, one of the requirements to qualify is that individuals sign up for a $50 per month pre-authorized contribution. While it does mean having to continuously contribute, the contribution requirements are lower than pre-authorized deposit amounts that typically come in at $100 per month elsewhere (see RBC Direct Investing for example) so clearly the team at Qtrade Investor has done some homework to put together a compelling offer.

Catherine Wood, Senior Vice President at Qtrade Investor offered the following comment regarding the launch of the new pricing for young investors:

“It’s important for Qtrade Investor to be a top choice for a new generation of Canadian self-managed investors, and we are seeing a big surge in the number of younger clients opening accounts. Younger investors are astute when it comes to assessing and comparing competing services and they know it’s important to keep their costs down. By reducing our commissions and fees, we can help them kickstart their portfolios and build their assets more quickly.”

It will be interesting to see how Qtrade Investor, a firm that has a very solid reputation for delivering quality customer service experiences over the phone and email, navigates a world where expectations for live chat and twitter have taken hold.

That said, without a doubt, this move is going to attract all kinds of interest in Qtrade and how they handle working with younger investors will ultimately determine whether or not ‘the cool kids’ give this new program the fist-bump of approval.

National Bank Direct Brokerage goes Commission Free for Eh-TFs

After several test runs with offering commission-free ETF trading for Canadian ETFs, it looks like National Bank Direct Brokerage is ready to roll out this feature to all clients starting September 1st. And, with well over 550 Canadian ETFs to choose from, this handily positions National Bank Direct Brokerage as having the most commission-free ETFs (to both buy and sell) of any Canadian discount brokerage.

Within the Canadian online brokerage space, the term “commission-free” ETF warrants some clarification. They key for DIY investors is to distinguish between offers that allow commission-free buying and selling and those that are commission-free to buy but not to sell.

For example, firms such as Questrade and Virtual Brokers offer “commission-free” buying of all ETFs, US or Canadian, but charge trading commissions on the sale of the ETF. Alternatively, Qtrade, Scotia iTRADE and Virtual Brokers offer selections of ETFs that are commission-free to buy and to sell. Prior to this roll-out, Virtual Brokers held the highest number of ETFs that could be traded (bought and sold) commission-free at 100, however opening up all Canadian ETFs to be traded commission-free means that National Bank Direct Brokerage now offers the most competitive selection. By a lot.

Screenshot from National Bank Direct Brokerage Website

Like all offers this good, it’s important to ask about the fine print or if there are any important terms and conditions. In this case, there are a few important considerations to this offer. First, there is a minimum quantity of ETF units (100) that need to be purchased in a transaction in order for it to qualify for commission-free status. This is not an insignificant number of units for many beginner investors or modest portfolios. Next, the list of eligible ETFs is determined by those that are published by the Canadian ETF association (that list of ETFs had 568 funds on it as of July 31st and is accessible here). Other important caveats are that commission-free trades don’t count towards activity thresholds that qualify investors for discounts on commission pricing, platforms or administrative fees.

Strategically, this new feature will clearly appeal to the growing number of investors interested in ETFs as well as with a strategic segment that many DIY investor firms are looking at: millennials. Offering up commission-free Canadian ETFs also positions National Bank Direct Brokerage as a worthy competitor to other bank-owned brokerages.

In their news release announcing the launch of this program, President of National Bank Direct Brokerage Laurent Blanchard commented

“We’re changing the online brokerage landscape, no transaction fees for all ETFs listed in Canada. This will make online investing more accessible for a greater number of investors. At the same time, it ensures that National Bank Direct Brokerage remains at the forefront of innovation.”

The latest offering from National Bank Direct Brokerage is a great development for DIY investors.

At a minimum there is at least one bank-owned brokerage that is prepared to meet a growing need for access to ETFs at a low cost and this fact alone may entice another bank-owned brokerage to improve its ETF offering.

Another reason this is advantageous for DIY investors, and perhaps a challenge to competitor firms such as Questrade and Virtual Brokers, is that the value proposition has to improve at these independent firms without pushing the cost of operating an account up. Thus, services will have to get better or if they remain the same they have to be cheaper.

This is still early days in what’s shaping up to be a very busy end of summer/fall season, there may be some very interesting counter offers coming.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

This week’s hits and misses from Canadian discount brokerages highlight the fact that online brokerages need to be ready to answer all kinds of questions. Mentioned this week were CIBC Investor’s Edge, Questrade, Scotia iTRADE and TD Direct Investing.

From the Forums

Too good to be free?

In this post from Canadian money forum, National Bank Direct Brokerage’s commission free ETF announcement started to make waves. Of course, more than a few skeptics were wondering how it would be possible to let investors trade ETFs commission free. More than a couple of interesting theories there. Also in this post from reddit, there’s an interesting view on the 100 unit minimum purchase.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap on a busy week. Markets are closed on Monday for Labour Day so hope everyone has a wonderful and safe long weekend!

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 26, 2016

With fall on the horizon, it’s not just the colours of the leaves that will be changing. As we ride out the final days of August, more and more Canadian discount brokerages are starting to unveil some of the changes they’ve been working on all summer in hopes that they can get on the radar of Canadians who now have more options when it comes to where and how they want their money to grow – assuming of course that they have the money to invest.

In this week’s roundup we take a look at a pair of new feature announcements from Canadian brokerages looking to add bells and whistles onto their existing DIY investor offering. From there we’ll take a look at what investors were tweeting on social media and close off with a look at the DIY investor conversations in the forums.

BMO InvestorLine Gets a Big Screen

Earlier this week, BMO InvestorLine let clients know about several upgrades and enhancements to the online investor experience it’s planning to deploy.

The first upgrade, which is now available, is a new ETF screener and comparison tool from Morningstar.  BMO InvestorLine’s latest ETF screening tool replaces the Lipper-rating driven interface with one that includes some of Morningstar’s filtering capabilities. For example, it is possible to filter ETFs by the Morningstar’s star rating, as well as additional features such as trading volume and detailed drill downs on portfolio and performance metrics.

Screenshot of new ETF screening tool

Given the number of parameters and information to search on, beginner users might find the navigation takes some time to get used to however for those looking to get detailed information on potential investment ideas, this screening tool will certainly feel like a step forward compared to the previous tool.

In addition to the filtering tools, BMO InvestorLine also appears to be upgrading their news feeds and alerts as well as readying for a new homepage navigation release in the fall.

Announcing these changes ahead of time certainly gives clients the heads up that changes are to be expected however, as has been the case with rollouts at RBC Direct Investing and TD Direct Investing, the ultimate test as to whether or not these changes improve or degrade performance will come from the users’ comments themselves.

The changes to the BMO InvestorLine website and digital experience are likely not the last DIY investors will see from this brokerage or its competitors.

To stay competitive, Canadian discount brokerages are constantly having to figure out how to provide better value for their clients. While lowering commission prices might still be an option, many brokerages are reluctant to do so as it directly cuts into their bottom line, which for many in the online investing industry, is long overdue for an upgrade.

Questrade adds robo into workshop

This week, an article in the Financial Post highlighted the partnership between Questrade and stock screening software provider Vector Vest that enables Questrade clients to keep their emotions in check and let a stock picking engine do the “work” of spotting opportunities.

While it sounds “robo-ish” in nature, ultimately pushing go on the trade, still rests with the owner of an account which means trusting the rules that presented the trade in the first place.

Those who know of VectorVest may rightly observe that this “new” feature sounds a lot like what VectorVest already does, which is to screen through stocks and identify which meet particular criteria for buying or selling. What is different, however, is that by integrating with Questrade platform, it becomes much easier to go from finding and spotting a recommendation to execution of a trade.

The announcement of VectorVest bolting onto Questrade’s platform sounds familiar. Since Questrade opened up its trading platform API, there has been a steady stream of third party integrations interested in growing their customer base while at the same time offering up some interesting functionality to the Questrade trading platform experience.

For DIY investors prepared to pay for these add-on features, this means that there is now access to more bells and whistles and for Questrade and the third-party partners, there’s revenue to be generated. It seems like a win-win-win all around. In fact, Questrade’s growing partner centre includes 8 “apps”, five of which are similar to the Vector Vest integration in that they are “Trade Now” enabled (this means that a trade window can be populated with order details when the ‘trade now’ button is pressed on partner sites).

Questrade’s competitors, however, should probably take note of this latest move. By having features developed externally, Questrade has defrayed the cost of operating and innovating their platform. Instead of having to license those features from other trading platform providers or to have to develop them on their own, someone else is doing the heavy lifting.

In this way Questrade can continue to focus on their core platform while other services focus on what they do well.

Further, for any Canadian DIY investor who’s watched BNN for any stretch of time, VectorVest does a LOT of advertising so there’s a good chance that DIY investors considering this option as a selling feature to joining Questrade have seen or heard the name before. The upside for Questrade is that the advertising has been paid for by someone else.

Another interesting twist to this particular story is the marketing ‘spin’ that’s been added to the mix. Specifically, positioning the Vector Vest integration as a “robo” style experience.

The term “robo-advisor” is certainly a hot topic in wealth management circles and Canadian investors are getting more and more exposure to the term so putting a new spin on the familiar product means that people might just shift how they perceive the VectorVest and Questrade combination.

Regardless of the spin, Questrade’s move to build out their trading platform functionality by using third party partners is a smart one. They’ve put quite a bit of time and effort into building a product experience that will be hard for other online brokerages to match unless they’ve got deep pockets and very creative developer teams – and that field is very small.

For now, the robo moniker for this latest feature launch may be a bit of a stretch, however Questrade is certainly pulling ahead in the ‘fintech’ game and until they are seriously challenged by someone else, they’re able to shape the story.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

Summertime might mean fun for some, but for others it means bugs galore. This week&apos;s tweets has lots of bugs mentioned from Questrade, Scotia iTRADE and TD Direct Investing.

From the Forums

Picking a broker 101

In this post, from the reddit personal finance Canada thread, is a perennial favourite – which discount brokerage to choose? The interesting twist on this one is that it is being asked by a university student.

Transfer credits

Finding the best way to transfer a TFSA while keeping the contribution room intact is a handy thing to know about for those looking to transfer brokerages. In this post, also from reddit’s personal finance Canada thread, one user is looking to make a smooth transition and gets a few pointers from users, as well as a brokerage.

Into the Close

That’s it for another edition of the roundup. Now that the end of August is almost here, be sure to enjoy the last few days of summer! For those looking for something other than stock picks and rate hikes to chat about, here’s a funny story that could only happen in Canada.

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 19, 2016

With the 2016 Rio Olympics staring down the final stretch, it has been quite the run for Team Canada and for many athletes the world over. Like the athletes who are focused on getting themselves on the podium next time, Canadian discount brokerages who want to win understand that training to be better happens day in and day out.

In this week’s roundup we take a look at the activity that is starting to pick up as discount brokerages head into their busier season. First we’ll review the latest movement in the investor education space and how brokerages are positioning themselves to leverage this offering heading into the fall. Next, we take a look at one independent brokerage’s quest to keep on improving. From there we’ll take a look at what DIY investors had to say on Twitter and close out this roundup with chatter from the investor forums.

See you in September

After a relatively quiet (on the surface anyway) summer it looks like investor education is poised to step back into the spotlight this September.

In last week’s roundup we took a look at the latest iteration of the investor education offering from Scotia iTRADE, “iTRADE U” which is essentially a splashier remake of their existing offering of seminars and webinars along with a dedicated course on the basics of investing.

This past week, it looks like TD Direct Investing revived their investor education calendar with a number of in-person seminars being planned for September. A closer look at the breakdown of content at TD’s seminars highlights the major focus they’re putting on training clients on how to use the standard TD Direct Investing trading platform: TD’s WebBroker. Interestingly, this past week was also the 20th anniversary for the WebBroker platform and to mark the event, TD shared this on their Twitter feed.

One of the challenges of being an online brokerage is certainly keeping costs down, which is why most Canadian online brokerages don’t put together original content on investing/trading, choosing instead to partner with 3rd party providers of educational services.

The original content that most brokerages provide as “education”, however, centers around platform training and orientation. One notable exception is TD Direct Investing, which has done quite a bit of work putting together original instructional content on trading basics into webinar and seminar format.

For those brokerages that may not be actively presenting educational content, the next best thing is to be associated with that content being presented.

Fortunately for Canadian discount brokerages, the Toronto MoneyShow will be rolling into town September 16th to 18th and there are a number of online brokerages who will be attending.

Toronto’s MoneyShow will be the only Canadian stop for the investment conference franchise and it will feature some of the most well-known personalities in DIY investing and personal finance such as Tom Sossonoff, Rob Carrick, Peter Hodson, Dan Bortolotti and many more. Everything from stock picking strategies to options, ETFs and, of course, Canadian real estate will be on the menu for attendees to learn about.

So far the Canadian discount brokerages who are listed as exhibitors at this event include:

  • CIBC Investor’s Edge
  • Desjardins Online Brokerage
  • National Bank Direct Brokerage
  • Virtual Brokers

With September just around the corner, there may still be more educational offerings to come to market as the planning that has taken place over the summer will finally be rolled out into action.

For DIY investors, the upside is that there are likely to be a handful of very interesting and relevant speakers and presentations that can help navigate how to trade around the US presidential election later this year.

Questrade swipes right on design

Lots of successful athletes know that the off season is a chance to get in great shape for when the real games begin. For Canadian discount brokerages, summertime is generally when things appear to gear down, however as Questrade has shown, they’ve been hard at work putting together some noteworthy upgrades to their trading and user experience.

Earlier this summer, Questrade announced upgrades to its online trading interface and user website navigation and last week they announced upcoming upgrades to their mobile trading experience.

The investment in making it easier, more intuitive and, crucially, more reliable to use online trading services is something all discount brokerages (who are serious about competing) are doing.

In the case of Questrade, their latest rollout shows that they are one of the only Canadian online brokerages building a bespoke trading platform experience on mobile as well as being on point communicating about it.

In terms of specifics, the upgrades to their mobile trading experience feature improvements to buying or selling stocks from quotes pages, improved options trading capabilities as well as enhancements to market depth (level 2) data for those subscribed to that service.

To access the new features users will have to download and install a new app which is scheduled to roll out in September. Getting a new app may be a way to hit restart the ratings and rankings on the app store. Currently the Questrade IQ mobile app is rated with 1.5 stars across 480 ratings on the iTunes store and 2.5 stars on the Google Play store – not a stunning endorsement of the mobile experience.

At this point, financial services firms and especially DIY investing firms, can only ignore good design for so long.

Robo-advisors, which have been growing rapidly in popularity with index investors, have been paying attention to and building mobile experiences for investors that are far cleaner than what most of what Canada’s discount brokerages currently offer to their customers. For comparison, Wealthsimple’s app has scored 4+ stars on both the Google and iTunes stores with a healthy amount of reviews to make that score meaningful.

Early adopters will certainly be eager to test drive and share their experiences with others as soon as the new product rolls out; Questrade, on the other hand, is hoping that the new reboot will be enough to win back some client love while also putting up a solid challenge to the robots.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

This week&apos;s tweets highlight a few outages with some major players. Mentioned in the twitterverse were BMO InvestorLine, Questrade, RBC Direct Investing, Scotia iTRADE & TD Direct Investing.

 

From the Forums

Credentials Issue

This past week, we received an interesting post about one Credential Direct user’s experience trying to have their account shuttered. Unfortunately, it sounds like quite a frustrating scenario but one that might offer some important lessons for those thinking about how easy (or difficult) it might be to move money out of a brokerage account.

Opportunities Abroad

With the focus on countries from all across the globe, it’s natural that some investors would be curious on how to trade internationally listed stocks. This post from reddit’s personal finance Canada section seemed appropriate.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap for this week. While the ceremonies for ending the Olympics are sure to be elaborate, there’s no reason that celebrating the end of another week can’t be fun either. Have a great weekend and stay cool!

 

 

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 12, 2016

One the great lessons embodied by the Olympics is that preparation, practice and discipline lead to success. It’s a message that holds true not only in the world of sport but also in the world of investing. For Canadian discount brokerages, one of the ways in which they can help enable investors to succeed is by providing access to great educational resources. While the Olympics may dominate the headlines for a few more weeks, at least one brokerage has big plans about making a big splash by getting back to school.

This week, we take a look at one bank-owned discount brokerage that is doubling down on investor education. Next we take a look at the climate for IPOs and how one brokerage has waded into this pool at a time when many others have stepped out. From there we’ll take a look at what DIY investors were talking about on social media and across the investor forums.

Getting Schooled

After a long absence, investor education is back in the spotlight. This week, Scotia iTRADE rolled out an updated and seemingly more structured version of their investor education offering with the launch of their iTRADE U and trading education boot camp.

With markets pushing new highs, it seems like those on the sidelines may become increasingly inclined to consider getting into (or back into) the world of DIY investing – which makes the rebrand and launch of the Scotia iTRADE investor education offering that much more timely.

So what’s under the banner of Scotia iTRADE U? For the moment, it appears that the webinars are largely the same as they were before, with educational partners such as Horizons ETFs and Montreal Exchange providing webinar content.

In addition to the iTRADE U, there’s also the boot camp that kicks off in early October which is being taught by long time education partner Pro Market Advisors. The four-week long series features courses on stock selection, entry and exit strategies, risk management and bull & bear market ETF strategies. Each course takes place once per week (for two hours on Tuesday evenings) with tutorial times on Thursday evenings. The best part is that these courses are provided free of charge.

What is interesting about the boot camp format is that unlike a one-off seminar and webinars that are the norm, this format seems more like a proper course.

The time allocated for the lessons is longer than the typical one-hour lunch & learn style courses so there are more opportunities to explore topics in detail. Also there are associated tutorial hours for individuals to ask questions or learn from the questions of others. Finally, there’s also the added touch of getting an ebook as well as a checklist to help follow along.

This is certainly not the first time (nor will it be the last) that a Canadian online brokerage has offered up a structured course as part of their investor education offering. Desjardins Online Brokerage, for example, has, in the past, provided structured investor educational partnerships with StockScores and DayTrading Canada. Scotia iTRADE has also previously partnered with Larry Berman at the Independent Investor Institute to offer ‘discounts’ to individuals taking courses.

It is, however, worth noting that this is a major “free” offering from a big-5 bank-owned discount brokerage – something that might induce RBC Direct Investing, CIBC Investor’s Edge or BMO InvestorLine to devote more resources to investor education. Curiously, TD Direct Investing, itself one of the most active online brokerages in providing investor education support, appears to have scaled back it’s in-person seminars in favour of the online format.

The latest educational offering from Scotia iTRADE definitely ups the ante for other Canadian brokerages looking to provide investor education to their clients (or potential clients). As September draws closer, it is likely that other bank-owned discount brokerages will find themselves thinking about how to get back to school.

Questrade’s IPO Centre Six Months In

When Questrade rolled out their new IPO Centre just over 6 months ago, they probably didn’t forecast just how bumpy a ride 2016 would be. First there was the sharp decline in the first few months of 2016, oil prices cratering and then markets have rallying back to make new highs. Then there was Brexit and of course the looming US Presidential election. Unfortunately, one thing hasn’t really made the news this year and that’s IPOs.

In what has turned out to be one of the worst starts for the Canadian IPO market in recent memory, Questrade’s IPO Centre has nonetheless been able to showcase just over 100 different deals that investors could have gotten access to since the Centre’s launch earlier this year.

Our recent post on Questrade’s IPO Centre takes a closer look under the hood and provides some more context on the progress of this feature year-to-date. Click here to read more.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

Bugs, fixes, and suggestions to improve seem to sum up the interesting chatter on Twitter. Mentioned this week are Questrade, RBC Direct Investing, Scotia iTRADE, TD Direct Investing and Virtual Brokers.

From the Forums

Four-letter word

One of the dirtiest four letter words for investors is risk. In a world where consumers expect protection from the risk of having their trading accounts protected, online brokerages are forced to step up the level of protection. This past week BMO InvestorLine pushed a message out to clients about adding an additional layer of authentication to the trading process which touched off an interesting debate on reddit’s personal finance Canada thread. Worth a read for those interested in taking a pulse on the information security landscape of financial service firms.

Not easy being green

Riding out a losing stock is never fun – until it turns around and goes back into the green. Unfortunately for some DIY investors, portfolio values that fall below a certain minimum amount at most brokerages can end up racking up extra fees. In this post from reddit’s personal finance Canada thread, one TD Direct Investing client share their story about holding on to a stock until it turned around and the fees that showed up in the meantime.

Into the Close

That does it for another week. Although markets were off slightly heading into Friday, Team Canada, and especially the Canadian women athletes were busy making us proud in Rio. Have a great weekend &  #GoCanadaGo!

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 5, 2016

Citius, Altius, Fortius – the Latin version of the motto of the Olympics which translates into faster, higher, stronger – seems to be an appropriate jumping off point for this week’s roundup, especially as the US stock markets hit new ‘personal bests.’ As with the Olympic games in Brazil, competition between Canadian discount brokerages is quite fierce – which definitely forces brokerages to step up their game.

This week’s roundup features an interesting review of one of the areas that Canadian discount brokerages continue to battle it out with one another and what that means for DIY investors and the industry as a whole. Next, we take a look at one online broker that may have finally stumbled after putting up strong performance numbers for many quarters in a row. From there we take a look at the chatter from investors on social media and in the investment forums.

Deal Pendulum

Like an intraday reversal, this month’s promotions and deals from Canadian brokerages appeared to show a bit of a pullback at the start of August but have inched up to show signs of coming back to life now that we’re a week in.

An extension of BMO InvestorLine’s summer promotion, an investor data partnership offer from Desjardins Online Brokerage and another contest from Virtual Brokers (this time to celebrate their 7th anniversary) helped to offset the expiring offers from Scotia iTRADE and Virtual Brokers at the end of July and brings the total number of advertised offers we’re tracking to 23.

Virtual Brokers’ choice to go with a contest offer was also in line with its last set of offers, which were also contests. In this case, their latest offer is a bit more engaging requiring individuals to hunt around the VB website in order to get a unique link that they can then enter the contest with.

A quick overview of offers shows that transfer offers remain the most popular, but contest/other offers appear to be gaining ground, especially over and above the cash back or commission-free trade promotions.

Of the several interesting developments this month, one of the more notable observations is that Desjardins Online Brokerage has crept up to four active offers, the same as long-time leader in this space Questrade. Last month it was Scotia iTRADE that mounted a challenge to top Questrade however with the expiry of iTRADE’s “TSX shopping spree” contest along with the accompanying transfer fee coverage offer, Scotia iTRADE now has two active offers in play.

Another interesting observation about the deals/promotion space is that there appears to be a relatively low number of referral offers.  In an industry where competing for new clients and growing an account base is so important, referral bonuses not only keep the costs of acquiring new clients low but they also signal, albeit indirectly, that a discount brokerage believes that their clients will find reasons beyond the financial incentive to endorse the company to their friends/family or colleagues.

Finally, it is also curious to observe that brokerages are not using their cash-back promotion structure even though brokerages are willing to extend coverage of transfer fees – effectively paying for clients. The paradox is that new clients, who don’t require complicated migration of holdings, are actually less expensive, and yet they are not the ones being offered an equivalent cash-back or commission credit incentive.

For DIY investors, although the choice of promotional offers has certainly thinned since the spring, the fundamental picture looks good for incentives to grow. There are more brokerages than there are clients rushing out to open a DIY investing account and brokerages are going to have to get creative to stay within budget while also attracting and retaining new clients.

With US markets hitting new all-time highs, the roll-out of CRM2 and Canadian investor sentiment ramping up, the winds are blowing in favour of online brokerages getting creative with their marketing. On the other hand, given the size of the Canadian pool of DIY investors, the opportunity to grow will largely go to the brokerage that moves the fastest and boldest.

Hitting the Hurdle

Even the best runners in the world occasionally stumble.  For the online brokerage space, Interactive Brokers has been fortunate enough to post strong metrics for so long that the recent announcement of their July performance numbers rattled investors in the stock (IBKR) and revealed an interesting angle on the DIY investing market.

First the stats. While Interactive Brokers continued to grow their account base – now at a whopping 360,000 (and up 1% over the previous month), what those clients were doing (or not doing) is what led to more than a few eyebrows being raised.

For the month of July, trading volume through Interactive Brokers fell 8% year-over-year and 6% month-over-month to 602,000 trades per day. In addition, the number of options contracts were down about 29% compared to a year ago and down 12% compared to June. Finally, on a year-over-year basis, margin lending was down 12% to $15.9B (USD) but up slightly (6%) compared to last month.

Stepping back from the numbers, it is interesting to reflect on what might be at play.

On the one hand with more accounts there should be a greater likelihood that trading, or more specifically, that trading revenue increased. That was not the case here, however, where there were more Interactive Brokers clients but fewer trades being made. Could this be a signal that IB is now attracting a slightly less active segment (or less profitable) client type and thus becoming more “mainstream?” While it is difficult to say for sure, another possible explanation is that traders are finding less to trade and are somewhat uncertain as to what the near term market direction will be (read: US elections) so they’re stepping back.

The next 100 days will be telling as to whether or not the US presidential race will introduce some major volatility into the markets.

With more clients signing on to IB, there are likely more traders waiting for that volatility to show up in force to find some interesting trading opportunities – something that bodes well for Interactive Brokers despite the pull back in activity. The lesson for all those who make a living from the markets though is that as much as earnings and performance numbers help to inform decisions, trading at its core is about speculating on future events and right now there are some very crazy possibilities ahead.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

This week’s tweets featured a good cross-section of interesting positive and negative feedback about Canadian brokerages. Mentioned this week were Questrade, Scotia iTRADE, TD Direct Investing and Virtual Brokers.

From the Forums

Flow of Funds

The less obvious costs of DIY investing are things that all traders should make an effort to find out about.   In this post from reddit, one community member the personal finance Canada group tries to get a better handle on the administration fees associated with moving money into, around or out of Questrade.

In the Red

For many investors learning the ropes of trading sometimes means learning the hard way that some account types let you spend more than you actually have. This post from reddit’s personal finance Canada section provides a good lesson to beginner investors to make sure they understand what kind of account they’re trading with and what happens if they incur a negative balance on the account.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap for this week. The Olympic games are officially underway which means that for most of us, we’ll be watching really fit people exercise on TV. Hopefully the games bring a welcome reprieve from the recent misery and misfortune that has cast a shadow on the games. Best of luck to all the Canadian athletes – bring home the gold!

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – July 29, 2016

The summer Olympics are just around the corner and with them will come all kinds of excitement, fanfare and of course, the widely anticipated opening ceremonies. While there aren’t typically flag bearers, parades, fireworks or exotic choreography, there are a handful of Canadian discount brokerages who try to make opening an online trading account feel exciting.

In this week’s roundup we take a look at some interesting maneuvers in the US online trading space that signals where online brokerages might be looking for opportunity to grow their top (and bottom) line. From there we’ll take a quick look at the promotions set to expire heading into August to see which deals stay and which ones don’t make the cut. We’ll also take a look at what investors were thinking and talking about this past week on social media and investor forums.

E*Trade Exercises Options to Buy OptionsHouse

All across the board in the US, there are signs that some of the final shackles of the great recession are finally coming loose.

In the online brokerage space, one of the brokerages that was heavily impacted by subprime lending practices (E*Trade Financial) finally took the milestone step of acquiring a competing brokerage, OptionsHouse, for $725M USD. The good news for E*Trade is that they were in a financially strong enough point to raise the funds and move forward instead of backward.

E*Trade wants to further entrench itself with the active trader community and their latest move does just this. In particular, E*Trade will be gaining a reasonably profitable and active trading client base that tends to trade considerably more than their existing clients. Options trading capabilities are also more profitable a product.

The Numbers

Now that OptionsHouse is part of a publicly traded company, we can get a glimpse of its numbers. According to E*Trade’s press release, OptionsHouse clients have $3.6B USD in assets. 63% of the firm’s volume is options and they did about $675 in revenue per account last year (154k accounts and $104M).

Using Cash

The acquisition puts to work about 44% of E-Trade’s idle cash and cash equivalents. The firm will still have over $900M USD in cash after the purchase.

But E*Trade is not only getting OptionsHouse – there’s also a perk of the talent coming with it.

History

General Atlantica, private equity firm, saw an opportunity to consolidate the brokerage business in late 2014. The firm bought OptionsHouse and merged it with another acquisition, tradeMONSTER.

Both firms specialized in options. tradeMONSTER was cofounded by the Najarian brothers who frequently appear on CNBC as trading personalities. OptionsHouse on the other hand was founded by PEAK6 – a large proprietary trading firm in Chicago, located in the historic CBOT building.  General Atlantic, merged tradeMONSTER and OptionsHouse to form Aperture Group in January of 2015.

Now just about a year and a half later, General Atlantic is calling on their inner trader to flip this to E-Trade.

While we don’t know General Atlantic’s cost basis, there’s a good chance they are in the green.

Heading into Expiry

With only a few more days left in July, the new deals cycle is almost here. While deals and promotions from Canadian discount brokerages have been lighter this spring/summer compared to last, there are still signs that there may be more deals on their way in August.

For instance, Virtual Brokers, who had not been active in the deal space for quite some time, has now launched several offers in 2016. It seems likely that Virtual Brokers will be pursuing new accounts and promotions a bit more actively in the past.

At the other end of the size spectrum, TD Direct Investing this week held a snap one-day promotion for clients. The offer included one commission-free trade as part of a ‘client appreciation’ maneuver.  With the promotional landscape having thinned out, it was remarkable that TD was the one rolling out the deal.

In the meantime, there are a couple of deals from larger bank-owned brokerages BMO InvestorLine and Scotia iTRADE that were slated to expire at the end of the month. For its promotion, BMO InvestorLine actually pushed out an extension to the promotion so that it now expires at the end of August. For Scotia iTRADE, there haven’t been any extensions (yet) on deals related to new accounts.

With a long weekend for many Canadians falling on August 1st it will be interesting to see which brokerages are actually going to update the deals sections on their sites on (or before) the turn of the new month.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

Another week and another set of platform outages. This past week there was a significant outage with Scotia iTrade which got a lot of active traders (understandably) fired up.

Mentioned this week were Questrade, Scotia iTRADE, TD Direct Investing, and Virtual Brokers.

From the Forums

Pros and Cons: Comparing Questrade and Virtual Brokers

Even though pricing changes have forced an evolution for Virtual Brokers’ price point, there are still common questions on how Questrade compares to Virtual Brokers. In this post from reddit, it was interesting to see one how one user broke down their experiences with both these popular discount brokerages.

Out of Orders

As mentioned above, this past week Scotia iTRADE’s trading system went down – much to the chagrin of many clients. In this post from RedFlagDeals.com’s personal finance section, multiple users chimed in on the experience with Scotia as well as the help.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap for another edition of the roundup. Have a safe and happy holiday weekend and remember that Canadian markets are closed on Monday.

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – July 22, 2016

With the activities going on in the US republican convention this week, it was difficult to escape the news cycle that was dominated by the upcoming US elections in November. Alas there are no plagiarized speeches, comb-overs or bad spray tans (at least that we know of) in the online brokerage space. Given the hubbub in the US, it seems fitting that this week we also shine a spotlight on US-based online brokerages as they reported their quarterly earnings and provided a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of the world of an online brokerage.

In this week’s roundup we take an in-depth look at the recent earnings from the major publicly traded US online brokerages as well as distill out some of the more fascinating talking points from the heads of the brokerages themselves. From there we’ll move to the borderless medium of Twitter to find out what had Canadian DIY investors talking about this week. Finally, we’ll close off the roundup with a few interesting conversation threads from Canadian DIY investors in the Canadian investor forums.

Feel the Earn

This past week, the latest quarterly numbers hit the tape for several of America’s largest publicly-traded discount brokerages. As a group, the four main publicly traded discount brokerages (Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade Financial and Interactive Brokers) pulled in a combined $3B USD in revenues for the quarter ending June 30th – not a bad haul considering the ultra-low interest rate environment. Looking at these revenue figures, it is clear that they have not stood still waiting for them to rise. Instead, they have changed their model to incorporate everything from extra fees, fee-based advice and even integrated ‘robo-advisor’ products into the mix.

Here are some highlights from the most recent earnings reports.

Profitability

Quarterly income per account brings headline numbers into perspective and also indicates how active each firm’s users are. These stats are displayed below, but the key takeaways are as follows.

Interactive Brokers, despite having doubled their client base over the past five years to 357k clients, still has the lowest number of accounts compared to their peers.  That said, Interactive Brokers is clearly holding its own when it comes to profitability compared to its peers. IB clients on average generated $596 of net income per account. On the other hand, the least profitable per account firm was TD Ameritrade which came in at $34.78 of income per account, however keep in mind Ameritrade has over 6.9M accounts.

Net Income per Client Account at US Online Brokerages Quarter Ending June 2016

DARTs

While all the other US brokerages houses showed mixed results DARTs (daily average revenue trades) wise, TD stood apart from the competition. TD posted the highest DART growth year-over-year, while Schwab had the hardest time quarter over quarter. The chart below displays DARTs for each firm.

Far from being the ‘apocalyptic’ event that many news headlines would have suggested, the Brexit volatility tended to benefit the online brokerages with, according to E*Trade’s CEO, many traders and investors jumping in to purchase securities that had sold off.

% Growth of Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) at US Online Brokerages Quarter Ending June 2016.

Technology & Platform Improvements

All these firms have acknowledged the importance of staying on the cutting edge of technology. As online brokerages, this should come as no surprise. Nonetheless, one of the biggest themes of discussion in company conference calls was the “digital advice” aka robo-advisors.

For example, Schwab released updates to their “Intelligent Portfolios” retirement planning feature. This application uses user generated initial investment, time and income stats to estimate monthly income levels. As the firm puts it, “clients now have more flexibility in setting their desired monthly income and receive suggestions on adjustments to meet their goal.”

E*Trade Financial also reported in on their robo-advisor product line, known as the “Adaptive Portfolio” which launched in June and has attracted $100M in assets under management since debuting the service. This application is E-Trade’s take on targeted asset allocation and automatic rebalancing, a hybrid strategy between completely self-directed and a managed account.

TD Ameritrade also rolled out a “digital upgrade” to their Amerivest service in June which will now enable Ameritrade to compete with its peers in the robo-advisor space. While not a full robo-advisor service just yet, the fully digital platform is forecasted to roll out in the fiscal year 2017.

Interactive Brokers continued to update their hallmark Trader Workstation desktop application. From Interactive Brokers, there was the admission that market making isn’t the business it used to be. After making only $5M this quarter, the lowest amount in the last 96 quarters, the writing is on the wall for this business unit to go out to pasture. It begs the question, if it’s hard for the so-called pros to make money by making markets, how well can individual investors fare?

Overall, despite the low interest rate environment, US online brokerages have managed to weather the storm by getting creative and offering a spectrum of services for investors. The biggest issues to watch over the next several months in the US will be the roll out of Department of Labor (DOL) rules on investor protection as well as the continued ramping up of robo-advisors.

These are two particularly important points for Canadian discount brokerages to monitor as well. The robo-advisor space in Canada is already becoming a crowded field, considering the Canadian market’s size, and so any Canadian discount brokerage contemplating entering into the space (following the lead of the US brokerages) will have to do so quickly and effectively.

The other item for Canadian brokerages to learn from is the role/impact of regulatory reforms (such as CRM2) that will force brokerages to be more efficient and effective in their use of technology. Already technology is clearly where Canadian brokerages, big and small, are trying to get right albeit with varying degrees of success. Throwing in the added pressure to ensure fees are disclosed properly and in a timely fashion means that brokerages might not focus as much on innovating as they do on ensuring they stay within the boundaries of the regulators.

Discount Brokerage Tweets of the Week

Even though there was a lot of heat outside and on Twitter, there was some high praise sent to RBC Direct Investing on their new digital look and feel. Mentioned this week on Twitter were Questrade, RBC Direct Investing, Scotia iTRADE, TD Direct Investing and Virtual Brokers.

From the Forums

Interface Dialogue

RBC Direct Investing rolled out the latest upgrade to their online trading interface. Reactions to the new look and feel were definitely mixed, as seen in this post on RedFlagDeals.com’s forum. Click to learn more about the various reactions and perspectives on whether the new site hit or missed the mark with DIY investors.

Fee-ling Down

One of the perceived advantages of going with the deeper discount brokerages, such as Questrade, is that DIY investors can save quite a bit on commissions. While commission pricing isn’t the only factor to consider, it is an important one. In this post from Canadian Money Forum, one reader got a bit more than they bargained for with ECN fees at Questrade. Click to read more.

Into the Close

That’s a wrap on another wacky week. Despite the dour headlines, markets continue to push higher. Enjoy the ride while it lasts and have a great weekend!