What are the best discount brokerages for Canadian investors?
Canada doesn’t have any deep discount brokerages like E*Trade, Datek, or Ameritrade with $8 to $12 market orders. The best you’ll do for now in Canada is C$24-$29 per order. For U.S. stocks, you’ll pay the same amount, but in U.S. funds; i.e., about C$45 per transactionwhich seems akin to bank robbery (and is). Legally, you cannot have an account with a U.S. brokerage, although some Canadians circumvent this by using a U.S. mailing address. In the Globe & Mail’s latest survey of Canadian brokerages, TD Waterhouse ranked first, followed closely by Bank of Montreal’s InvestorLine. The other major banks (CIBC, Scotia Bank, Royal Bank) all have decent products. There are also a couple of independents, including E*Trade Canada and eNorthern (currently the cheapest). http://www.globeinvestor.com/series/brokersurvey2001/index.h… Norm Rothery also provides information on Canadian brokers at his site: http://www.stingyinvestor.com/SI/brokers.shtml Disclaimer: I’m a long-term TD Waterhouse cus
