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slidebite posted:How big of a deal is it to move accounts over in kind from a brick and mortar brokerage like RBCDS to one of those online places with TD Waterhouse or Questrade? Like all things banking, it's going to be a hassle at best, but, especially if you've got a decent amount of assets to transfer, someone on the receiving institution will help you out and likely cover any RRSP transfer fees or what not. slidebite posted:Is it a huge exercise in frustration? This is largely our life savings we're talking about so it's kind of a big deal if there are issues. You really don't have anything to worry about - you might need to fill out a couple of forms, make the odd phone call, and then look at your accounts occasionally to check it's all been done correctly as the switchover happens... but it's not like your money's at risk of vanishing or something.
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Oct 4, 2013 14:46
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slidebite posted:So I have been reading a little bit on that couch potato website and those TD -e series funds. After reading what you guys here say and understanding MERs you have a really good point about fees and we pay out the rear end for trade fees outside the TFSA. Fund name Fund ID MER Index tracked RBC Canadian Index RBF556 0.72 S&P/TSX Composite RBC US Index RBF557 0.72 S&P 500 RBC US Index * RBF558 0.72 S&P 500 RBC International Index * RBF559 0.70 MSCI EAFE RBC Canadian Gov’t Bond Index RBF563 0.66 DEX Universe Federal Bond By the time your portfolio gets large enough for the fees to be a significant issue you should be switching over to ETFs anyways. The best strategy is to purchase index funds monthly (free) and then once a fund reaches $10,000 in value, sell it and buy the equivalent ETF. Rinse and repeat. Another option is to open a questrade account which currently offers free ETF trades. However questrade has really bad customer service and takes a long time to do certain things so be warned. Also the promotion could end at any time. cowofwar fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 16:06
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cowofwar posted:If you do your banking with RBC and have lots of accounts you may end up saving more money by sticking with them if they offer enough bundling discounts. You don't have access to the TD e-series funds but you do have access to the RBC funds which are not that much more expensive. Interestingly enough, I asked my RBCDS adviser if he has access to the TD index -e funds I gave him links to the TD pages and he said he did. e: From here: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/products-services/investing/mutual-funds/td-eseries-funds.jsp?tab=what-is-it https://www.tdassetmanagement.com/fundDetails.form?fundId=3261&lang=en https://www.tdassetmanagement.com/fundDetails.form?fundId=3270&lang=en https://www.tdassetmanagement.com/fundDetails.form?fundId=4877&lang=en (I just picked a few) slidebite fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Oct 5, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 01:19
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He shouldn't since as far as I know you can't even buy them through a normal TD brokerage account. Might be the normal TD funds which are similar aside from MER.
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Oct 5, 2013 01:44
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cowofwar posted:He shouldn't since as far as I know you can't even buy them through a normal TD brokerage account. I kind of thought that, but here is our exchange: slidebite posted:Do you have access to the TD -e funds? RBCDS dude posted:I can access almost any mutual fund out there with only a few exceptions...these are index funds and I do have access to these specific ones.
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Oct 5, 2013 01:52
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Can we introduce RESP discussion into this thread? I have a 5 month old and really have no idea how to go about setting her up for college or whatever she chooses to do. I have my RSP with Questtrade but I'm hesitant to open an RESP with them because...well I don't really know. We were contacted by a company whos name I can't remember right now who it seemed set up an account in your kids name and after 18 years of contributions that they manage you get a payout for school. I'm so lost...
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Oct 5, 2013 04:52
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If I just had a large-ish deposit from my former employer (severance pay) into my RRSP, but plan to withdraw most of it using the Lifelong Learning Plan within the next three months, does it make sense to invest it in any ETFs or should I just let it sit as cash? I'm not too concerned with market fluctuations, I don't need to withdraw it if it means taking a loss, mostly I'm not too sure what the penalties are for buying and selling ETFs over that short of a time period. Do any gains get taxed somehow before withdrawal despite being in an RRSP?
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Oct 5, 2013 13:45
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old info removed
melon cat fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Oct 5, 2013 16:40
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melon cat posted:You said that you want a no-nonsense investment professional that you can trust. That's a very reasonable request. But, there are a few things that you should know about when working with full-service brokerages (these are groups like RBC Dominion Securities, TD Waterhouse, BMO Nesbitt Burns, etc.). One, they often have high investment management fees. After all, their full-time job is managing your portfolio. And two, they won't even talk to you unless you have a substantial amount of investments in your name. Something like $75K worth (don't quote me on that $ amount, but you get the idea). If you're really keen on getting involved with these guys you should build up your savings as much as you can, and once you've got more assets in your name talk to the full-service brokerages at that time. And third, they fail to beat or match the market about 80% of the time. So, by going with actively-managed funds, you not only usually fail to match market performance, but you pay management expenses, commissions, and extra taxes for the privilege. Index investing is not difficult and you really owe it to yourself to learn just a little about personal finance.
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Oct 5, 2013 22:41
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tuyop posted:And third, they fail to beat or match the market about 80% of the time. So, by going with actively-managed funds, you not only usually fail to match market performance, but you pay management expenses, commissions, and extra taxes for the privilege. It's actually pretty damning that all of this isn't more widely known. Entire industries and companies built on the premise that people are largely ignorant of these facts.
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Oct 5, 2013 23:50
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tuyop posted:And third, they fail to beat or match the market about 80% of the time. So, by going with actively-managed funds, you not only usually fail to match market performance, but you pay management expenses, commissions, and extra taxes for the privilege. I believe that assertion, but can someone point me in the direction of a legit study that shows that? My wife is skeptical of that and is leery of index funds. I think it is largely the unknown though.
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Oct 6, 2013 19:25
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slidebite posted:I believe that assertion, but can someone point me in the direction of a legit study that shows that? My wife is skeptical of that and is leery of index funds. I think it is largely the unknown though. It's not a large study, but William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing lays it all out very well for an entire chapter. He cites many academics and studies but there are no footnotes or an actual bibliography. This is also not a controversial fact. Since computer analysis was available since the 1960s, and before that from finance sperg types like Alfred Cowles in the 1920s, it's been very obvious that: 1. Nobody can time the market or pick winning stocks. It is simply impossible. 2. The entire actively managed industry manages to underperform the market despite what chance would suggest. 3. Actively managed funds charge heavy fees, so even if you were to meet market performance, which is the best case scenario you can rely on over the long term, you'd still underperform by the value of the fees. As a further nail in the coffin, look at how the biggest players invest: Pension funds are almost entirely indexed and they manage hundreds of billions of dollars in some cases. The fact that the actively managed industry exists at all is really kind of bizarre. It's all floated on a bed of lies that have been summarily shown to be false for half a century.
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Oct 6, 2013 19:45
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slidebite posted:I believe that assertion, but can someone point me in the direction of a legit study that shows that? My wife is skeptical of that and is leery of index funds. I think it is largely the unknown though. The internet is absolutely stuffed with sources on this. Reading Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing is how I was initially convinced. To start with, read that Andrew Coyne FP article I posted last page. You will not find a credible argument to the contrary. It's not even a controversial claim at this point (among people who aren't thoroughly invested in selling expensive mutual funds, that is).
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Oct 6, 2013 19:47
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Earwig posted:I figured as such, yeah. So far as I know, FATCA is for $50k in your account at the end of the tax year (don't have to file if you spend it or remove it from the account), or $75k total at any point during the year. Since I'm currently at $0 a year it's crazy to think I'd hit the point of $75k-- but if I do it right I guess it's not too far out of reach after all. Are the guidelines on this up somewhere? I've read seperately that if you have $10k outside the US in all your accounts at any one time you have to file, but here you're saying $50k.
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Oct 7, 2013 07:57
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Lexicon posted:The internet is absolutely stuffed with sources on this. Reading Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing is how I was initially convinced. To start with, read that Andrew Coyne FP article I posted last page. Here's a really funny anecdote that's currently going on about this: Warren Buffett made a bet with Protege Partners, a Wall Street hedge firm, that they could not beat the S&P 500 index fund from Vanguard with a fund that pools into their five finest hand-picked hedge funds (including, most likely, one hedge fund under their direct control). The last I read about it (from the 5-year mark), Buffett's single-index portfolio has returned 8.69% over five years, while the Protege hedge fund of funds is at 0.13%. Matt Taibbi called it "the sort of plain-vanilla investment that Warren Buffett used to publicly kick the rear end of Wall Street's cockiest hedge fund." Bleu fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Oct 7, 2013 |
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Oct 7, 2013 13:06
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Bleu posted:Here's a really funny anecdote that's currently going on about this: Warren Buffett made a bet with Protege Partners, a Wall Street hedge firm, that they could not beat the S&P 500 index fund from Vanguard with a fund that pools into their five finest hand-picked hedge funds (including, most likely, one hedge fund under their direct control). The last I read about it (from the 5-year mark), Buffett's single-index portfolio has returned 8.69% over five years, while the Protege hedge fund of funds is at 0.13%. Matt Taibbi called it "the sort of plain-vanilla investment that Warren Buffett used to publicly kick the rear end of Wall Street's cockiest hedge fund." Heh, that's awesome. I've filed that article away for future persuasive purposes 
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Oct 7, 2013 14:26
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Help! I went to open a Questrade account, and to verify my identity they asked me about : - a line of credit opened in 2009; - how much per month I am currently paying towards the line of credit (the minimum amount option was $700 per month); and - a gas company credit card opened in 2011. I do not hold this line of credit or gas company credit card. I'm obviously requesting my Transunion and Equifax credit reports right this minute but am hopeful that someone in this thread will chime in with a "oh ho ho those Questrade questions, by gum" story, which will placate my fears about discovering that someone has been meddling with my credit and/or identity. 
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Oct 7, 2013 18:59
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It's not necessarily an indication of fraud... But there's a good chance. Gotta request those reports annually. I have a recurring reminder to do this. Good luck.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:08
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Thanks for the responses about the index funds and lack of an investment advisor. I will give them a read and chat with Mrs. Slidebite  Spadoink posted:Help! I went to open a Questrade account, and to verify my identity they asked me about : I would get your credit reports obviously (a good idea anyhow) but if it was ID theft from 3-4 years ago, I think you'd know by now. I actually had a questrade acct about 4 years ago but cancelled it because they kept loving up. They'd send all my paperwork (shareholder reports, etc) to a mystery address in Calgary. When I asked them about it, they said "Oh you must have given us that address".. no, I never did. I know exactly where I live and wouldn't screw it up, so I closed my accts and moved those to RBCDS. So, I guess you bring up another point, who is a good online brokerage for opening accounts? I have no desire to go to Questrade, so is TD Direct the way to go?
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Oct 7, 2013 19:09
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slidebite posted:
Well, that makes me feel a bit better. I agree that it is weird that someone might take out a line of credit in my name and then make payments on it. Cue joke about the Canadian stereotype - we're so nice that ...
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Oct 7, 2013 19:23
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Every time I've come across one of those "verify your identity by answering questions" things there's always been one answer that's a piece of credit I've never had, and there's always been the "I don't have this" option, which is obviously the correct one. Never two though. I think you're on the right track by getting your credit reports, but it might be nothing.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:24
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Are you sure it's not those tricky credit history based identification questions? I've had those when opening bank accounts and such before and they often seem to ask fake questions where the only right answer is none of the above.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:26
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slidebite posted:So, I guess you bring up another point, who is a good online brokerage for opening accounts? I have no desire to go to Questrade, so is TD Direct the way to go? As long as you have > $50k in assets, TD Direct and BMO Investorline both have $9.95 trades. I use BMO, and I quite like them. They don't seem to care at all about me doing Norbert's Gambit (I've heard of other banks complaining to clients about doing this and telling them not to make a habit of it). TD is good because of the presence of e-Series - but you don't need a trading account for that necessarily. You can convert an existing TD Mutual Funds account over to e-Series, and do it entirely on the banking side. As a general point, I find BMO to be the least greedy and penny-pinching of the big 5. When I was researching business accounts for myself, they had by far the most reasonable terms. TD, by contrast, completely priced themselves out of the market for me (IIRC, it was something like $10 monthly for the 'privilege' of having a USD-denominated business savings account).
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Oct 7, 2013 19:30
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Spadoink posted:Help! I went to open a Questrade account, and to verify my identity they asked me about : They did ask me a bunch of weird questions like that. I answered truthfully to the best of my knowledge and it worked out perfectly. As for forms being sent to incorrect addresses, when I did it in July and August, everything, including the LIRA application, was possible digitally with very convenient electronic signatures or less convenient print > sign > scan > email options.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:36
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Squibbles posted:Are you sure it's not those tricky credit history based identification questions? I've had those when opening bank accounts and such before and they often seem to ask fake questions where the only right answer is none of the above. I answered none of the above, thinking it might be this, but then Questrade 'couldn't verify my identity' 
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Oct 7, 2013 19:38
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Lexicon posted:As long as you have > $50k in assets, TD Direct and BMO Investorline both have $9.95 trades. I use BMO, and I quite like them. They don't seem to care at all about me doing Norbert's Gambit (I've heard of other banks complaining to clients about doing this and telling them not to make a habit of it). TD is good because of the presence of e-Series - but you don't need a trading account for that necessarily. You can convert an existing TD Mutual Funds account over to e-Series, and do it entirely on the banking side. Thanks. I take it BMO doesn't have access to those sweet TD -e funds?
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Oct 7, 2013 19:46
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slidebite posted:Thanks. I take it BMO doesn't have access to those sweet TD -e funds? No, you must buy them within the context of either TD Direct Investing, or TD Mutual Funds (after going through the song-and-dance of 'converting' your account to e-Series). I have the latter for automated savings from my main [ING] chequing account, and that's my only relationship with TD.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:51
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slidebite posted:Thanks. I take it BMO doesn't have access to those sweet TD -e funds? No they don't, but they're hardly the only low-MER Canadian and International index funds available so I don't really get the excitement over e-series.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:51
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tuyop posted:No they don't, but they're hardly the only low-MER Canadian and International index funds available so I don't really get the excitement over e-series. The excitement is: it's the only product in Canadian finance that allows dollar-cost averaging into market indices with non-prohibitive transaction costs and low MER.
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Oct 7, 2013 19:53
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Lexicon posted:The excitement is: it's the only product in Canadian finance that allows dollar-cost averaging into market indices with non-prohibitive transaction costs and low MER. Ok, so maybe I'm not understanding dollar cost averaging or transaction costs because I haven't gotten there yet. If I send, say, $1000/month to Questrade and then buy $4000 of ETFs once per quarter in a few different indexes (or even once a month with the 1k), there are no upfront costs because ETF purchases are "free" and I couldn't find any other fees related to that in their documentation. Is that not the same thing? What's the difference?
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Oct 7, 2013 20:05
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I'm certainly open to all products and financial institutions at this, my research phase. I just want to pick someone that is easy to deal with, screw ups are non-existant (or minimal), have nice online tools and have access to decent products that don't cost a fortune.
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Oct 7, 2013 20:06
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Spadoink posted:Help! I went to open a Questrade account, and to verify my identity they asked me about :
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Oct 7, 2013 20:22
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tuyop posted:Ok, so maybe I'm not understanding dollar cost averaging or transaction costs because I haven't gotten there yet. True, I forgot about Questrade's "free ETF" thing. You could certainly go that route. I'm not sure how long that will last though, and as stated, I'm not a huge fan of Questrade's online tools. My setup is that I send $AMT from my chequing account into TD e-series on a weekly basis, and as far as I know, e-series is the only economical way to do this at low amounts at high frequency. There's probably little actual benefit in contributing so often versus monthly or quarterly, but I like having it set up this way.
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Oct 7, 2013 20:22
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I'm really not sure why Questrade gets a bad rap in the customer service department. They screw a lot of things up, but a quick chat with them usually fixes stuff within a few days. I think their customer service is decent if not great. Anyone doing a lot of trading should check out Interactive Brokers. Can't recommend them enough.
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Oct 10, 2013 02:11
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Maybe this is a dumb question... I successfully signed up for the e-series with TD. Is there a way I can make my own portfolio of the recommended funds set to the percentages I want or do I have to manually split my contribution across the 4 funds I want and have each one show up separately and do 4 separate contributions each time?
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Oct 10, 2013 18:46
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Squibbles posted:Maybe this is a dumb question... You want to start off with a sensible split, and then add your purchases with an appropriate proportionality (each week, I contribute $X to the US index, $Y to the CA index, etc). Inevitably, with market fluctuations, things will get out of sync, so yearly you'll aim to rebalance back to a target allocation in order to take profits and buy cheap securities.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:35
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I'm thinking of opening a trading account at BMO or TD. Does anyone know if they charge additional fees for self-directed registered accounts (RRSP or TFSA)? I'm thinking of opening a non-registered and a TFSA there.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:37
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Lexicon posted:I'm thinking of opening a trading account at BMO or TD. Does anyone know if they charge additional fees for self-directed registered accounts (RRSP or TFSA)? I'm thinking of opening a non-registered and a TFSA there. Usually the big banks have an annual fee if the account size is below a certain amount. BMO fee schedule: https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/public/pdf/Schedule_Oct_2013.pdf TD fee schedule: http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/apply/forms/521778.pdf
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Oct 17, 2013 15:45
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Lexicon posted:I'm thinking of opening a trading account at BMO or TD. Does anyone know if they charge additional fees for self-directed registered accounts (RRSP or TFSA)? I'm thinking of opening a non-registered and a TFSA there. melon cat fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 17, 2013 15:46
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Thanks all, that was useful. Will probably just go with BMO as I already do business banking through them.
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Oct 18, 2013 16:50
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