Edit: it’s been brought to my attention (as mentioned in some comments) that the conversion may not be applicable on US dividend. Thanks for those who shared this info and thank you for your understanding! I'd just like to emphasize that I am a big supporter of both platforms. This is just a video to bring light to the downsides so that you can make the most well-rounded decision as an investor! Thanks for watching! :D You can even sign up and receive bonuses using these links: Questrade (Get $50 in commission-free trades) - www.questrade.com/campaigns/qbaffl50t102?refid=ayiice9l Wealthsimple Trade ($25 cash bonus when you deposit $100 or more) - wealthsimple.sjv.io/zQ1d6 📈📚 As always, if you're a beginner to the Stock Market and you're looking for a step-by-step blueprint on how to get started... Find out more about our Investing Academy here - bit.ly/theinvestingacademy
Hey when you use questrade active trader do you still pay ecn fees? The commissions to buy a stock is way cheaper. You have to pay into it but if you trade alot it worth it.
@@MonkeyDLucy I use Norbert's Gambit to get away from the conversion fee... however it can take like 5 business days to clear and lots can happen in that time... and so if a stock goes higher by a percentage more than conversion fee you've sort of lost out on that. (Think of fast moving stocks like Tesla) Also it's best to convert at least a few thousand dollars... as smaller amounts will mean that the transaction fees from buying and selling will get closer and closer to the 1 or 2%... I believe there are also ECN fees... I recently bought 6000 shares of DLR.TO... and the cost was $21 CDN for example. (Still waiting for the journalling to finish, but in the past it was definitely more than the $9.99 to sell as well)
@@TheVinceVoice I did some calculations and it is cheaper. If you have other funds you can use (i.e. margin) while waiting for the funds to journal over, then it seems like a good move. And if you are doing at least a few thousand like you said.
why does my margin account depreciates daily? even if I dont do anything in a day, I open with 3000 CAD, everyday it lessens 30 to 50$, I asked Questrade they said it might the dollar conversion but the CAD doesnt go down everyday against USD, that's why I opened TFSA and see if it the depreciation happens too, it does not. My TFSA has the same amount it has the day before, unlike Margin I lose 1.++% everyday, because of this I'm thinking of daytrading in TFSA or should I convert all my CAD to USD since I only daytrade US markets. Thanks!!!
So I should have my tfsa on wealth simple trade and invest in Canadian stocks and use questrade with my rrsp to buy us and international stocks right? I have both set up already just trying to figure out the best way to do this
@@DelargeBeatss generally penny stocks are pump and dump stocks( Google it ) if they are not on ws then they may just be bad stocks simply. As with any stock trading education is key as is timing
@@DelargeBeatss no worries. Never bet more than you can lose. Know about bid/ask spread and be aware of pump and dump.. itvCAN be profitable if you buy em low and ate aware of trending, but you can't usually hold these stocks for very long cause they dump.. not always,
4 роки тому+19
I personally use Questrade! No complaints, great platform.
Damn Brandon, this is probably one of your best videos so far. As a both QT and WS user, I thought I knew all there is to know about these two platforms but I learned some new things today. Well done.
Quest Trade Customer Service: started this year with them as a total noob, using Brandon's guidance 2 Customer Service help, one FRANTIC not appreciating the time needed from a "bill payment" from my bank to my TFSA acct. i freaked when there was a delay, sent off a "HELP" - within an hour they gracely taught me how this works. and they delivered on another NOOB question.......I can imagine the facepalms going on but that day I was on the correct path in no time. I absolutely love Quest Trade and THANK YOU BRANDON. old bugger, but I was wise enough to stack metals and converted them to this oddity called TFSA (like a noob) I feel like I've learned 10x of what I knew about financials before meeting Brandon. hats off to you - young wise one. give your dad a hug for me(us).
@@thePlum i have my normal savings in case of emergencies but my true savings is chilling in a bank stock that i send a few hundred every month. so 10 bucks on a 200 dollar transfer im already down what 5%?
Straight up, TD commissions to buy ETFs for retirement basically makes it stupid to invest any less than $1000 at a time. Need to transfer my retirement over to wealthsimple or questrade.
C I haven’t found one yet. Wealth Simple doesn’t have as many trade option and it is only open 9:45AM - 4:15PM for trading. It’s not a big deal for DRIPS because you have free trades
@@thischeeseburger wealthsimple doesn't allow day trading, takes longer to fund/withdraw, has a 1.5% conversion fee on all U.S. equity trades, slow execution speeds, 15 minute delayed chart, sometimes skims you a few pennies on market orders, and no option trading. Questrade charges commisions on all equities, except when you buy an ETF, and doesn't offer crypto currency trading. I like wealthsimple for long term Canadian investments and investing in stocks with small amounts of money, as that will provide a benefit on the 1.5% currency compared to anywhere else in the canadian market. It's also commission free, but the conversion rate is hiw they make money. I like questrade for investing large amounts of money, as the commission rate range is a flat fee of $5.95 to $9.95. The conversion rate is only a one time fee of 2%, but they offer the nobert's gambit conversion which allows you to save on conversion fees when you're investing over a few thousands. Questrade also allows unlimted day trading, and option trading. A nice twist is you can actually buy option calls in a tfsa, which is a powerful combination. Just try not to day trade too much in your TFSA, keep it to long holds or swings. You can also open an RRSP, use margin in a margin account, and short stocks. Questrade also has fast executions, and will sometimes fill you at cheaper prices than the ask price during a market/limit order.
@@jhoncena1111 Interactive Broker is much preferable in Canada for Day Traders. $0.005/share commission fee and you can hold USD in your account as well.
Gravity Falls Canada That’s exactly right! Why pay more than you need to? Overpaying for avoidable fees & excessive commissions is like paying more taxes than you’re actually required to pay. People could save a decent chunk of change over even just a single year’s worth of trading OR investing longer term.
I use wealthsimple for canadian stocks. But i will br opening a questrade account to hold US stocks. There are some gems in the US exchanges that no one should be missing out on!
Had wealthsimple trade for a year. Basically fully avoided the us market but I’m starting to realize there is more potential there. Starting out it was ok because i was trading small amounts but now that my portfolio is a decent size I think it makes sense to switch. I was thinking of just transferring my Wealthsimple account so the stocks are already bought for free
WealthSimple is great but....1. purchasing usd stocks no us holding account so your forced to pay forex commission. 2. all quotes are 15mins delayed so you need another platform in order to get realtime quotes and 3. Doesn't support ipo purchases until stock is live in market.
Those are some hefty negatives though, imo. Pointless restrictions & fees. And we all know that excessive fees are a serious detriment to a small account.
Ikr i use another tool to get real time prices and graphs on one window screen and wealthsimple Trade on the second monitor using an android emulator to use WealthSimple Trade on PC had no issues yet , usually get my order filled using limit order. If you have a good PC youll be able to use the emulator with no lag and no problem. * with wealthsimple trade you dont rly need DRip bec commissions are free. If you have enough capital to get 1 share of the stock you chosen in dividend, you just buy 1 share or more when you get paid. Or use all ur dividends on a stock that went down to reduce ur average price. Happy investing 😜
There are few other significant downsides of WS: 1) 3 days hold on money coming in or out from the account 2) Not allowing you to buy the stock unless you have 105% of the delayed stock price in cash. (They execute the trade within +/- 5% of price when using market price buy). Which doesn't make sense even for market buy (their displayed stock prices are delayed and stock price could dive below that), but they impose this rule even on limit buy! 3) Not calculating gains properly. (I think this goes to flaws of the app category?). Example: If you buy a stock at $10, it raises to $20 and you buy it again. Average price is $15 and gain is $10 ($5x2). Fine. You sell what you bought at $20 while price is still $20. And boo. Stock average price remains $15, but gain is now only $5 So only hopes remains that WS paved the way for competition and more no-fee brokers come to Canada. Or those here abandon fees not to treat Canadians and Americans differently (looking at you TD!)
if i had to pay 5-10 bucks everytime i would honestly have a hard time holding onto the cash and not buying stuff. i like WSTrade cuz i can just do what i can with what I've got.
All the bank-owned discount brokers do. And they all offer competitive trade commissions when compared to WealthSimple and QuestTrade. And they all have vastly superior fixed income inventories to offer, if and when that starts to matter to an investor. But they ain't hip. And everyone knows, investing with a hip company is important when it comes to investing. Especially via UA-cam advice.
Interactive brokers is by far the best brokerage for serious investors in Canada. It uses volume-based commissions where most of the time you'll only be paying $1 per trade, and a less than 0.1% forex fee. Amazing fundamental analysis tools and the lowest fees for a brokerage without the crippling limitations of Wealthsimple
I use WealthSimple Trade for my TFSA only and I use my banks brokerage for RRSP and other accounts due to tax implications of US dividends in a TFSA account. just my strategy. Great video by the way!
To anyone watching this video at the end of 2021, WS trade has corrected many of the negatives outlined in this video. It’s absolutely superior to Questrade for trading Canadian stocks and ETF’s for index fund investors. The only use case for Questrade where it might have a slight edge depending on the scenario is US stocks, due to the ability to hold US cash in your accounts. This is still scenario dependent, as with WS trade, you’re not paying the $5-10 commission, which you should absolutely consider based on how much you’re investing and whether the conversion fee outweighs the commission.
I use WealthSimple right now as I only have a few thousand dollars. I am going to max out my TFSA with Canadian ETFs that track the US and global markets. Later, I will use Questrade for an RRSP and some USD funds. Those upfront fees are a big deal for me right now and I really need every penny frontloaded into the market to kickstart my compound interest. I think it's fine to have both, and honestly, WealthSimple has a queue for future changes - for example, options aren't off the table, they now have a desktop manager, they now offer crypto, etc. So, I also think that using WealthSimple for the '"Long Term" also means that you can benefit from long-term benefits and improvements to the platform, especially as new companies emerge and they become more competitive.
Thank you Brandon. Really helped me learn some great information between the 2. Although I have investments with Wealth Simple Trade, I like the fact you can hold USD with Questrade. Great video!
Hi! I didn't read all the comments, but just a quick one of my part. At National Bank direct brokerage, you can have a registered account in USD. I have both a CAD and USD RRSP with them. I can transfer stocks and ETF from one account to the other (example: if I buy a US stock on the fly with my CAD account, I can ask to transfer it free of charge to my USD account and receive dividends or proceeds of the sale in my USD account in USD, of course. I also have accounts with WS and Questrade - just beginning on these platforms. Thanks for your informative videos.
man i really appreciate this video there's been number of time where I didn't know where my funds were going because i was only trading on the U.S market and wasn't aware of ECN fees and i didn't know that Canada had interactive brokers
I use Questrade and I pay 89$ a month for L2 platform plus 1c a trade. As I buy some times 1 to 5 and 10 share many times a day may be 100 trades for 1$. I have RIFs and tfsa margin etc. money conversion fee is 1$ only if you do 10K or more and also onetime. I trade mostly in US securities and i like real time L2. I am happy with questrade.
I use questrade. I think it's better as you can hold US dollars. But I think it's a good idea to have access to both. You can use Questrade for US companies and Wealth for companies listed in the TSX and take no commission fees. If a canadian penny stock interest you and it's listed on wealthsimple, use wealth simple for that investment or trade. I definitively like QT a lot but will use wealth a bit eventually for canadian stocks.
When I first joined Questrade the on line comments about customer service were rampant and very negative, and for the most part were perhaps justified especially in wait times. Questrade have done a 180 degree turnaround and their wait times are really quick and have to say any time I have had to call they have been very knowledgeable, helpful and courteous. Questrade was my "play" account but seriously considering moving all my investments from a high street brokerage to them. I am super happy with them and their fees
Very in-depth comparison! Great job my Canadian fellow! I picked Questrade because of the exact reasons you mentioned in this vid. One more plus for Questrade is they allow Norbert's Gambit, which virtually waives the 1.5%-2% currency conversion fee. You will only need to pay $5-$10 flat as the commission fee.
To avoid the regular 1.5% conversion fee on WST I buy ETF's with US holdings that hedged for Candains cause I'm a cheapass. Ex- ZQQ. Nice video tho man 👍
I think you are right, there is nothing here saying about conversion fees on dividends, only to buy/sell >> tradehelp.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360013247493-How-do-Wealthsimple-Trade-s-currency-conversion-fees-compare-to-other-brokerages-
Is this true?? So i only have to pay the conversation fee when i buy and sell? Also is the 1.5% per transaction or per share? Someone please enlighten me, im new to Wealthsimple trade!
So for clarity hypothetical: I buy a usd stock on ws and pay $100 ( I lose 1.5 % to fee so essentially have invested 98.50 ) and I hold said stock. It pay a dividend of $10... do I now have 108.50 cdn? . If so thats not bad, I assume they simply skim the gain from the usd ? ( i.e they kept the % difference in the currency ??) This would still be profitable to them so I don't see why not? Would appreciate any clarity you can offer.
Hello, this was the most recent videos but I've seen about all of your videos comparing wealthsimple and questrade, one of the biggest points was the desktop application vs app. I just got this from wealthsimple trade and thought I would share: "We’re working on bringing the Wealthsimple Trade experience to desktop and want feedback from users like you! All you have to do to try it is go to wealthsimple.com and log in with your email and password. Right now, only some of the features you know and use in the mobile app will be available on desktop. We’ll be adding more so that your experience is the same - no matter where you’re trading. Once you’ve had a chance to try it out, we’d love your feedback."
Totally agree that questtrade better but surprised u didn't touch on the lack of stock information available on wealthsimple and the 15min delay on stock price real killer if using mkt buy if stock fluctuating alot, questtrade real time and mkt research helps alot more
they do they time delay on purpose to discourage day-trading on their platform, they want their users to be safer and really only invest for long-term growth
If your a Canadian....investing in an American stock....the least of your problem is the 1.5% conversion.... You are Taxed 30% on american income...and when that money comes to Canada(if its not in a TFSA) is subject to more tax....
I use WS have mostly blue chip canadian stocks and VFV. Probably plan to open a TFSA in Questrade and dip into the US market. Can't miss the growth of the biggest stock market in the world.
RBC offers their own robo investor called investease. Seems the same as wealthsimple in terms of fees, portfolios and such. Just seems less user-friendly
appreciated that you also mentioned Interactive Broker, which is my primary trading platform, for holding $US with low commission of $1/trade. (I do understand that it's not an ideal platform for the target audience of this channel. Happy to hear the mention nonetheless :) My TFSA is with QuestTrade. 100% agree with the analysis!
Great review on two popular trading platform available in Canada! We should know better that nothing comes for free... Always watch out for these hidden costs 😵
Great video. What is your stance on using Questrade for the US side of the portfolio and Wealthsimple for Canadian only? Or do you think its just easier to stick with one platform.
Generally speaking it is typically more effective for retail investors to try and keep most of their investible assets in one institution. The more brokerage companies that you deal with, the harder it is to have good oversight of your total performance. It just takes a bit more work which could be a deterrent for many people. Open banking may eventually make this easier for Canadians, but as of right now it is not really a viable option.
It depends which stocks you buy. US stocks have enough volume for you to have confidence that your trade will actually be sent through but you have to pay 1.5% buy and sell = 3%. That’s taken off the revenue not the profit, from my understanding. That’s means if you made 3,4% and pay 3%, you have 0,4% profit!
You can negotiate a better conversion rate if you buy US dollars in advance of buying stocks in a lump sum. Then it always stay separate in your account in US dollars. This is a big advantage if you want to buy precious metals in your account. I believe Questrade is the only brokerage that allows this.
Not only Questrade offer the US$ in TFSA or RRSP account. CIBC investor edge also offers to have US$ account under TFSA or RRSP along with non-registered account.
At the 10 minute mark - wrong ! BMO Investorline has always allowed one to hold cash in both Canadan AND U.S. Dollars. Although BMO still has way out-of-date high commisions, even though you are doing all the work yourself.
Those ECN fees are only if you place market orders. If you place limit orders, i.e. you don’t remove liquidity, you don’t pay the ECN fee. Or so says their webpage.
Hey Brandon. I'm curious whether or not it makes sense for me to use both. Since I'm Canadian, I can use QW for USA and WS for Canadian? Are there any drawbacks to this that arent already apparent from this video? Do you already have a video about it? Thanks!
Great vid! I use both. Questrade for US and some Canadian stocks not available on Wealthsimple, and Wealthsimple for all other Canadian stocks. Would love to see Questrade allow fractional share buying soon.
Thank you Brandon. One thing that no ones has done with Questrade is a live trade, be great to see how it gets filled and executed. I recently move back to Canada from the USA and looking for new broker or a way to keep my US TDAmeritrade. Appreciated your content
Alternatively use whitelabels of interactive broker like tradeststion global. Whitelabels does not have inactivity fees. Spot exchange rate and cost only USD2.00/exchange. Commission is way cheaper than questrade
Wealthsimple was a HUGE game changer for me after coming from TD direct investing. Even if TD cut their commission fee, my business will always remain with WS. My approach is dollar cost averaging, just with my risk tolerance I prefer to add to my position little by little vs lump sum investing. It was very evident this was the right choice for me back in March when the market tanked- I was heavily buying everyday; if I was with TD I would have been charged a lot in fees. Saying that, I do not buy USD stocks only CAD whether individual stocks or an ETF that underlines the US market.
Why not just recommend people use both? I started with RBC, transfered all in kind to Questrade when I wanted a cheaper brokerage, then Opened a WST account after discovering that too. Everything costing or paying out in USD I do with QT, and then Canadian securities I do WST. Best of both worlds.
Sure seems like something only a slim margin of people tend to do research, feel confident enough to actually invest, and likely understand how terrible gambling is in general. Just getting into this but I appreciate the advice. Just setting up a TSFA and I have some ideas on where I want to research investments for long-term growth.
Regarding trade fees: to be fair each company's financials should be taken into consideration. From what I understand Wealthsimple is operating on investor money and Questrade is operating on revenue. Wealthsimple may charge $0 but they are potentially more risky as a company because if funding is pulled, the company goes under. We've already seen Wealthsimple layoff a bunch of people. That's because of over-growth using investor money. Where-as I understand Questrade is profitable which makes them less of a risk to the trading customer. But, you have to pay a fee.
If you purchase a US stock on Wealthsimple Trade, you pay the 1.5-2% conversion, but then say you sell the stock, do you pay another 1.5-2%? Or is that second conversion from USD to CAD covered? If it's the former, having a 3-4% fee for investing in US companies is a bit ridiculous. That's a huge hit to take. These platforms need to get better, or allow you to hold USD...
Sort of agree, but based on the wealthsimple trade website, that's one of the few only ways they make money atm. For CAD stocks only you won't have to worry much.
Thank you for the video Brandon. Those are things I was not aware of. I am fairly new to investing on my own and have appreciated all of your teachings!
The only complain I have for Questrade is no discount on Drip when company offered % discount for dripping. I am owning shares if AQN on both TD and Questrade. Td's price for dripping AQN is 5% of the market price. Questrade does not give me the discount though.
My advice for anyone that wants to get involved in the US market but want to limit fees, just purchase ETF's in your Wealthsimple account. If you want individual US stocks, then yeah, I guess Questrade would be the better platform.
What if I want to invest in Canadian and in US market. Does it mean that it’s better to have both platforms - wealthsimple trade for Canadian and Quastrade for US? (In terms of paying less commission fees)
Questrade does not convert your Canadian to US dollars until the end of the business day, so you don't know what the conversion rate will be. Once your conversion is done they don't show you online what your conversion rate was.
I have both, I save my money in more than one broker, more than one bank. I get the benefits of each bank and broker. Some might say that's a headache when tax season comes, but imagine something happened to your Quest Trade account or your bank account becomes compromised. I'd rather spend a day filing my taxes accounting for my various incomes than risk all my money in one institution for the sake of saving a few hours filing my taxes. I don't day trade tho
Hello Brandon, an excellent video comparing both platforms. What are your thoughts on TD Direct Investing and how does it compare to Questrade? Thank you 🙂
Hey Brandon. For those of us using Wealthsimple Trade, would investing in one of Vanguard's US index funds trading on the TSX such as VUN or VFV be a good way of investing in the US market while avoiding currency conversion? Or is CAD converted to USD when buying these funds?
If on the bar it says cad then its a cad funded stock. Vanguard has a cad stock. Look at the market the trade happens in if its nasdaq then your paying conversion, ifvits tsx, tsx-v etc its cad fund ( no exchange fee ) :)
Edit: it’s been brought to my attention (as mentioned in some comments) that the conversion may not be applicable on US dividend. Thanks for those who shared this info and thank you for your understanding!
I'd just like to emphasize that I am a big supporter of both platforms. This is just a video to bring light to the downsides so that you can make the most well-rounded decision as an investor! Thanks for watching! :D
You can even sign up and receive bonuses using these links:
Questrade (Get $50 in commission-free trades) - www.questrade.com/campaigns/qbaffl50t102?refid=ayiice9l
Wealthsimple Trade ($25 cash bonus when you deposit $100 or more) - wealthsimple.sjv.io/zQ1d6
📈📚 As always, if you're a beginner to the Stock Market and you're looking for a step-by-step blueprint on how to get started... Find out more about our Investing Academy here - bit.ly/theinvestingacademy
thanks for the video Brandon! I am curious if there are any downsides to using Norberts gambit for my margin account?
Hey when you use questrade active trader do you still pay ecn fees? The commissions to buy a stock is way cheaper. You have to pay into it but if you trade alot it worth it.
@@MonkeyDLucy I use Norbert's Gambit to get away from the conversion fee... however it can take like 5 business days to clear and lots can happen in that time... and so if a stock goes higher by a percentage more than conversion fee you've sort of lost out on that. (Think of fast moving stocks like Tesla) Also it's best to convert at least a few thousand dollars... as smaller amounts will mean that the transaction fees from buying and selling will get closer and closer to the 1 or 2%... I believe there are also ECN fees... I recently bought 6000 shares of DLR.TO... and the cost was $21 CDN for example. (Still waiting for the journalling to finish, but in the past it was definitely more than the $9.99 to sell as well)
@@TheVinceVoice I did some calculations and it is cheaper. If you have other funds you can use (i.e. margin) while waiting for the funds to journal over, then it seems like a good move. And if you are doing at least a few thousand like you said.
why does my margin account depreciates daily? even if I dont do anything in a day, I open with 3000 CAD, everyday it lessens 30 to 50$, I asked Questrade they said it might the dollar conversion but the CAD doesnt go down everyday against USD, that's why I opened TFSA and see if it the depreciation happens too, it does not. My TFSA has the same amount it has the day before, unlike Margin I lose 1.++% everyday, because of this I'm thinking of daytrading in TFSA or should I convert all my CAD to USD since I only daytrade US markets. Thanks!!!
I have Wealthsimple and Questrade. I buy Canadian stock in Wealthsimple and US stocks in Questrade. That’s the best way to go
zamran AKA Agha same
Thats the way to go!
I do the same!!!! And i use Norbert Gambit for my US stock!!!
D j 😂😂that’s crazy, I do it too (DLR.TO ) we are all living the same life
So I should have my tfsa on wealth simple trade and invest in Canadian stocks and use questrade with my rrsp to buy us and international stocks right? I have both set up already just trying to figure out the best way to do this
UPDATE on September 29,2020 from Questrade
As of October 1, 2020, our quarterly inactivity fee has been discontinued.
😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂 I wish.
what you talking about ..just paid $5 for one of the trades SMH
@@kengoul9611 questrade-support.secure.force.com/mylearning/view/b/Account/Inactivity+fees
What are you saying
WST is good for people who are just starting out. Simple and not complicated
Wealthsimple
@@Oppa. on wealth simple there are penny stocks that are not available tho, I just subscribe and I am leaving it
@@DelargeBeatss generally penny stocks are pump and dump stocks( Google it ) if they are not on ws then they may just be bad stocks simply. As with any stock trading education is key as is timing
@@MrDmadness Thank yoU !!!!
@@DelargeBeatss no worries. Never bet more than you can lose. Know about bid/ask spread and be aware of pump and dump.. itvCAN be profitable if you buy em low and ate aware of trending, but you can't usually hold these stocks for very long cause they dump.. not always,
I personally use Questrade! No complaints, great platform.
Trade 10000 shares x 0.20$ on Questrade and find out how much you lose as commission!
@@subaranatham2558 10 bucks lol ?
Damn Brandon, this is probably one of your best videos so far. As a both QT and WS user, I thought I knew all there is to know about these two platforms but I learned some new things today. Well done.
Bro the only downside I can see is that I don't have enough money to invest 😂
Amen
Get your bands up!
Get tht bread bro✊🏾
Yes you do.... Every dollar counts. Put more in whenever you can
Sometimes I invest as little as 1$ that I got from selling empty bottles and cans I found in the trash.
Quest Trade Customer Service:
started this year with them as a total noob, using Brandon's guidance
2 Customer Service help, one FRANTIC not appreciating the time needed from a "bill payment" from my bank to my TFSA acct.
i freaked when there was a delay, sent off a "HELP" - within an hour they gracely taught me how this works.
and they delivered on another NOOB question.......I can imagine the facepalms going on but that day I was on the correct path in no time.
I absolutely love Quest Trade and THANK YOU BRANDON.
old bugger, but I was wise enough to stack metals and converted them to this oddity called TFSA (like a noob)
I feel like I've learned 10x of what I knew about financials before meeting Brandon.
hats off to you - young wise one.
give your dad a hug for me(us).
Glad you decided to pause your tenure at your firm. Changing lives.
still better than paying 10 bucks a trade through my bank.
its insane, TD killed me when I way trying to day trade thru there, Wealthsimple has been a godsend
@@thePlum i have my normal savings in case of emergencies but my true savings is chilling in a bank stock that i send a few hundred every month. so 10 bucks on a 200 dollar transfer im already down what 5%?
@@camanderson9954 ROTFL
Yes and td used to charge$ 29.95 for commission per trade
Straight up, TD commissions to buy ETFs for retirement basically makes it stupid to invest any less than $1000 at a time. Need to transfer my retirement over to wealthsimple or questrade.
Great comparison! I use Wealthsimple trade for some great Canadian dividend stocks, and Questrade for American.
Great review, I do Canadian stocks on WealthSimple Trade and US Stocks on Questrade
I'm a novice investor. I was thinking the same thing. Are there any downsides long-term?
C I haven’t found one yet. Wealth Simple doesn’t have as many trade option and it is only open 9:45AM - 4:15PM for trading. It’s not a big deal for DRIPS because you have free trades
@@thischeeseburger wealthsimple doesn't allow day trading, takes longer to fund/withdraw, has a 1.5% conversion fee on all U.S. equity trades, slow execution speeds, 15 minute delayed chart, sometimes skims you a few pennies on market orders, and no option trading.
Questrade charges commisions on all equities, except when you buy an ETF, and doesn't offer crypto currency trading.
I like wealthsimple for long term Canadian investments and investing in stocks with small amounts of money, as that will provide a benefit on the 1.5% currency compared to anywhere else in the canadian market. It's also commission free, but the conversion rate is hiw they make money.
I like questrade for investing large amounts of money, as the commission rate range is a flat fee of $5.95 to $9.95. The conversion rate is only a one time fee of 2%, but they offer the nobert's gambit conversion which allows you to save on conversion fees when you're investing over a few thousands. Questrade also allows unlimted day trading, and option trading. A nice twist is you can actually buy option calls in a tfsa, which is a powerful combination. Just try not to day trade too much in your TFSA, keep it to long holds or swings. You can also open an RRSP, use margin in a margin account, and short stocks. Questrade also has fast executions, and will sometimes fill you at cheaper prices than the ask price during a market/limit order.
@@jhoncena1111 Thank you for your reply
@@jhoncena1111 Interactive Broker is much preferable in Canada for Day Traders. $0.005/share commission fee and you can hold USD in your account as well.
Interactive brokers needs more love. Best broker out there
Absolutely, and it was only given a passing mention in this video. 🤔
That's because nobody wants to pay commission fees or at least not over 5 dollars...
Gravity Falls Canada That’s exactly right! Why pay more than you need to? Overpaying for avoidable fees & excessive commissions is like paying more taxes than you’re actually required to pay. People could save a decent chunk of change over even just a single year’s worth of trading OR investing longer term.
I use wealthsimple for canadian stocks. But i will br opening a questrade account to hold US stocks. There are some gems in the US exchanges that no one should be missing out on!
Had wealthsimple trade for a year. Basically fully avoided the us market but I’m starting to realize there is more potential there. Starting out it was ok because i was trading small amounts but now that my portfolio is a decent size I think it makes sense to switch. I was thinking of just transferring my Wealthsimple account so the stocks are already bought for free
WealthSimple is great but....1. purchasing usd stocks no us holding account so your forced to pay forex commission. 2. all quotes are 15mins delayed so you need another platform in order to get realtime quotes and 3. Doesn't support ipo purchases until stock is live in market.
Shhh... Yahoo Finance just added live quotes for Canadian stocks.
Give it some time.
Those are some hefty negatives though, imo. Pointless restrictions & fees. And we all know that excessive fees are a serious detriment to a small account.
Ikr i use another tool to get real time prices and graphs on one window screen and wealthsimple Trade on the second monitor using an android emulator to use WealthSimple Trade on PC had no issues yet , usually get my order filled using limit order. If you have a good PC youll be able to use the emulator with no lag and no problem.
* with wealthsimple trade you dont rly need DRip bec commissions are free. If you have enough capital to get 1 share of the stock you chosen in dividend, you just buy 1 share or more when you get paid. Or use all ur dividends on a stock that went down to reduce ur average price. Happy investing 😜
What other application or website do you use to get quotes?
There are few other significant downsides of WS:
1) 3 days hold on money coming in or out from the account
2) Not allowing you to buy the stock unless you have 105% of the delayed stock price in cash. (They execute the trade within +/- 5% of price when using market price buy). Which doesn't make sense even for market buy (their displayed stock prices are delayed and stock price could dive below that), but they impose this rule even on limit buy!
3) Not calculating gains properly. (I think this goes to flaws of the app category?). Example: If you buy a stock at $10, it raises to $20 and you buy it again. Average price is $15 and gain is $10 ($5x2). Fine. You sell what you bought at $20 while price is still $20. And boo. Stock average price remains $15, but gain is now only $5
So only hopes remains that WS paved the way for competition and more no-fee brokers come to Canada. Or those here abandon fees not to treat Canadians and Americans differently (looking at you TD!)
Yes, not being able to transfer using interact into their platform is just terrible... I can't find a good usage of WS, to be honest...
if i had to pay 5-10 bucks everytime i would honestly have a hard time holding onto the cash and not buying stuff. i like WSTrade cuz i can just do what i can with what I've got.
Well my plan was to buy cheap stocks like 2.00 and maybe 20? So an additional 5.00x20=100 on top is getting out of hand
Plus U.S. dividends are taxed outside RRSP accounts.
You really helped me understanding Questrade's different features from WS. Thank you so much!
I use Wealthsimple with my desktop for one month now. Good info. Thanks.
That covered very important points about unadvertised fees that are often not considered by new investors. Love your stuff Brandon!
RBC does the dual CAD-US account as well. No need to convert all the time.
All the bank-owned discount brokers do. And they all offer competitive trade commissions when compared to WealthSimple and QuestTrade. And they all have vastly superior fixed income inventories to offer, if and when that starts to matter to an investor.
But they ain't hip. And everyone knows, investing with a hip company is important when it comes to investing. Especially via UA-cam advice.
I have accounts in both platforms. Questrade for US securities and Canadian ETFs. Wealthsimple Trade for Canadian stocks.
Quest trade has such bad reviews in the App Store. I’m timid to try it
Interactive brokers is by far the best brokerage for serious investors in Canada. It uses volume-based commissions where most of the time you'll only be paying $1 per trade, and a less than 0.1% forex fee. Amazing fundamental analysis tools and the lowest fees for a brokerage without the crippling limitations of Wealthsimple
I use WealthSimple Trade for my TFSA only and I use my banks brokerage for RRSP and other accounts due to tax implications of US dividends in a TFSA account. just my strategy. Great video by the way!
Greatly articulated information for those of us new and willing to self-directed invest - thanks for all your time and dedication - appreciated!!
I Use questrade for US Stocks and wealthsimple for canadian stocks😌 ( realised when my Dividend from Apple was charged for conversion)
Great video👍
To anyone watching this video at the end of 2021, WS trade has corrected many of the negatives outlined in this video. It’s absolutely superior to Questrade for trading Canadian stocks and ETF’s for index fund investors. The only use case for Questrade where it might have a slight edge depending on the scenario is US stocks, due to the ability to hold US cash in your accounts. This is still scenario dependent, as with WS trade, you’re not paying the $5-10 commission, which you should absolutely consider based on how much you’re investing and whether the conversion fee outweighs the commission.
god I wish Canada had M1 Finance, it looks great. for now questrade is fine.
ikr!?
WeBull would be good to have in Canada too
I use WealthSimple right now as I only have a few thousand dollars. I am going to max out my TFSA with Canadian ETFs that track the US and global markets. Later, I will use Questrade for an RRSP and some USD funds. Those upfront fees are a big deal for me right now and I really need every penny frontloaded into the market to kickstart my compound interest. I think it's fine to have both, and honestly, WealthSimple has a queue for future changes - for example, options aren't off the table, they now have a desktop manager, they now offer crypto, etc. So, I also think that using WealthSimple for the '"Long Term" also means that you can benefit from long-term benefits and improvements to the platform, especially as new companies emerge and they become more competitive.
Thank you Brandon. Really helped me learn some great information between the 2. Although I have investments with Wealth Simple Trade, I like the fact you can hold USD with Questrade. Great video!
It's not just the Questrade that you can hold both Canadian dollars and US dollars in a registered account. AFAIK, Interactive Brokers do that as well
Questrade has awesome customer service
Hi!
I didn't read all the comments, but just a quick one of my part. At National Bank direct brokerage, you can have a registered account in USD. I have both a CAD and USD RRSP with them. I can transfer stocks and ETF from one account to the other (example: if I buy a US stock on the fly with my CAD account, I can ask to transfer it free of charge to my USD account and receive dividends or proceeds of the sale in my USD account in USD, of course.
I also have accounts with WS and Questrade - just beginning on these platforms.
Thanks for your informative videos.
man i really appreciate this video there's been number of time where I didn't know where my funds were going because i was only trading on the U.S market and wasn't aware of ECN fees and i didn't know that Canada had interactive brokers
Brandon, your message is very clear and perfect for a novice like me. Thank you
I agree
I use Questrade and I pay 89$ a month for L2 platform plus 1c a trade. As I buy some times 1 to 5 and 10 share many times a day may be 100 trades for 1$. I have RIFs and tfsa margin etc. money conversion fee is 1$ only if you do 10K or more and also onetime. I trade mostly in US securities and i like real time L2. I am happy with questrade.
I use questrade. I think it's better as you can hold US dollars. But I think it's a good idea to have access to both. You can use Questrade for US companies and Wealth for companies listed in the TSX and take no commission fees. If a canadian penny stock interest you and it's listed on wealthsimple, use wealth simple for that investment or trade. I definitively like QT a lot but will use wealth a bit eventually for canadian stocks.
Very Important disclaimer. Wealthsimple Trade does NOT charge conversion on dividends payed out by U.S companies!
Altho If you were to repurchase US shares with those dollars you would have to pay another 1.5% conversion which is a BIG deal!
He just mentioned that US dividends were subjected to ANOTHER 1.5% right?
When I first joined Questrade the on line comments about customer service were rampant and very negative, and for the most part were perhaps justified especially in wait times. Questrade have done a 180 degree turnaround and their wait times are really quick and have to say any time I have had to call they have been very knowledgeable, helpful and courteous. Questrade was my "play" account but seriously considering moving all my investments from a high street brokerage to them. I am super happy with them and their fees
Love the clarity of this video!!! Amazing!
Thanks Merwise :)
There is no inactivity fees in Questrade starting on Oct 1, 2020.
Your attention to detail is much appreciated. Keep it up! Thank you!!!
Very in-depth comparison! Great job my Canadian fellow!
I picked Questrade because of the exact reasons you mentioned in this vid.
One more plus for Questrade is they allow Norbert's Gambit, which virtually waives the 1.5%-2% currency conversion fee. You will only need to pay $5-$10 flat as the commission fee.
Didn’t he say that you have 2% currency exchange fees with both Qstrade and WS?
How could you buy US stocks on QT and pay 5-10$ instead of 2%
To avoid the regular 1.5% conversion fee on WST I buy ETF's with US holdings that hedged for Candains cause I'm a cheapass. Ex- ZQQ. Nice video tho man 👍
TEC is good too!
Or just Norbert’s gambit with DLR.TO/DLR.U.TO. You can convert with near market rates.
Canadian hedged are sweet
Great vid Brandon.
But US dividends are not subject to conversion fees. Only buy/sells.
I think you are right, there is nothing here saying about conversion fees on dividends, only to buy/sell >> tradehelp.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360013247493-How-do-Wealthsimple-Trade-s-currency-conversion-fees-compare-to-other-brokerages-
Is this true?? So i only have to pay the conversation fee when i buy and sell? Also is the 1.5% per transaction or per share? Someone please enlighten me, im new to Wealthsimple trade!
Apple Juice It’s per total amount you are paying.
@@jamesb4188 just once on the total when you buy and sell
So for clarity hypothetical: I buy a usd stock on ws and pay $100 ( I lose 1.5 % to fee so essentially have invested 98.50 ) and I hold said stock. It pay a dividend of $10... do I now have 108.50 cdn? . If so thats not bad, I assume they simply skim the gain from the usd ? ( i.e they kept the % difference in the currency ??) This would still be profitable to them so I don't see why not? Would appreciate any clarity you can offer.
Hello, this was the most recent videos but I've seen about all of your videos comparing wealthsimple and questrade, one of the biggest points was the desktop application vs app. I just got this from wealthsimple trade and thought I would share:
"We’re working on bringing the Wealthsimple Trade experience to desktop and want feedback from users like you! All you have to do to try it is go to wealthsimple.com and log in with your email and password.
Right now, only some of the features you know and use in the mobile app will be available on desktop. We’ll be adding more so that your experience is the same - no matter where you’re trading.
Once you’ve had a chance to try it out, we’d love your feedback."
Totally agree that questtrade better but surprised u didn't touch on the lack of stock information available on wealthsimple and the 15min delay on stock price real killer if using mkt buy if stock fluctuating alot, questtrade real time and mkt research helps alot more
Not that much of a pain, just have another app that is at the real time prices and buy based off that. Better than paying commissions on trades.
they do they time delay on purpose to discourage day-trading on their platform, they want their users to be safer and really only invest for long-term growth
That's why I couldn't find certain companies! Very helpful video. Totally on point . Forward . And honest . Appreciate it!
If your a Canadian....investing in an American stock....the least of your problem is the 1.5% conversion....
You are Taxed 30% on american income...and when that money comes to Canada(if its not in a TFSA) is subject to more tax....
I use WS have mostly blue chip canadian stocks and VFV. Probably plan to open a TFSA in Questrade and dip into the US market. Can't miss the growth of the biggest stock market in the world.
Being in the industry this video is excellent and lays out all the worthy points
What are your thoughts regarding the bank's platforms such as RBC direct investing or TD, BMO...etc?
RBC offers their own robo investor called investease. Seems the same as wealthsimple in terms of fees, portfolios and such. Just seems less user-friendly
Thanks for all the research you've done to make our lives easier!
You can hold USD in a BMO Investorline account. I do. It's been that way for as long as I can remember.
appreciated that you also mentioned Interactive Broker, which is my primary trading platform, for holding $US with low commission of $1/trade. (I do understand that it's not an ideal platform for the target audience of this channel. Happy to hear the mention nonetheless :) My TFSA is with QuestTrade. 100% agree with the analysis!
I agree, converting and holding US dollars at forex price is good. Also their portfolio analysis section is gold
Great review on two popular trading platform available in Canada! We should know better that nothing comes for free... Always watch out for these hidden costs 😵
Thanks for the insights. Eating up content like crazy last few months!
Great video. What is your stance on using Questrade for the US side of the portfolio and Wealthsimple for Canadian only? Or do you think its just easier to stick with one platform.
Yes someone please give their insight!
Generally speaking it is typically more effective for retail investors to try and keep most of their investible assets in one institution. The more brokerage companies that you deal with, the harder it is to have good oversight of your total performance. It just takes a bit more work which could be a deterrent for many people. Open banking may eventually make this easier for Canadians, but as of right now it is not really a viable option.
It depends which stocks you buy. US stocks have enough volume for you to have confidence that your trade will actually be sent through but you have to pay 1.5% buy and sell = 3%. That’s taken off the revenue not the profit, from my understanding. That’s means if you made 3,4% and pay 3%, you have 0,4% profit!
Seems like WS with the USD account is better. $10 / mo.
Hey Brandon, is there any way to transfer my entire stock portfolio from wealthsimple to questrade? Thanks
You can negotiate a better conversion rate if you buy US dollars in advance of buying stocks in a lump sum. Then it always stay separate in your account in US dollars. This is a big advantage if you want to buy precious metals in your account. I believe Questrade is the only brokerage that allows this.
Not only Questrade offer the US$ in TFSA or RRSP account. CIBC investor edge also offers to have US$ account under TFSA or RRSP along with non-registered account.
I think the one time usd fee is proportional, because 2% of 200 is the same as (2% of 20) *10
At the 10 minute mark - wrong ! BMO Investorline has always allowed one to hold cash in both Canadan AND U.S. Dollars. Although BMO still has way out-of-date high commisions, even though you are doing all the work yourself.
Those ECN fees are only if you place market orders. If you place limit orders, i.e. you don’t remove liquidity, you don’t pay the ECN fee. Or so says their webpage.
Great breakdown. One big PLUS with wealthsimple trade is they are getting into the cryptocurrency space.
So far WS sucks bad for crypto
Just saw your video, got everything needed to know, very simple language understandable to everybody
Hey Brandon. I'm curious whether or not it makes sense for me to use both. Since I'm Canadian, I can use QW for USA and WS for Canadian? Are there any drawbacks to this that arent already apparent from this video? Do you already have a video about it?
Thanks!
Great video I appreciate you visiting the cons, thank you for the reviews!
Great vid! I use both. Questrade for US and some Canadian stocks not available on Wealthsimple, and Wealthsimple for all other Canadian stocks. Would love to see Questrade allow fractional share buying soon.
I trade USD stocks by using a USA account with Cibc Investors Edge and it eliminates the exchange fees every time I trade.
Thank you Brandon. One thing that no ones has done with Questrade is a live trade, be great to see how it gets filled and executed. I recently move back to Canada from the USA and looking for new broker or a way to keep my US TDAmeritrade. Appreciated your content
Love the video! Liked and subscribed :)
Looking forward to learning a lot
Looking at your video today, Wealthsimple really improved. Except for the drips part, I'd really wish to have this
Alternatively use whitelabels of interactive broker like tradeststion global.
Whitelabels does not have inactivity fees.
Spot exchange rate and cost only USD2.00/exchange.
Commission is way cheaper than questrade
What are the de registration fees? Both platforms will charge them?
Great video bro. Love the content. Subscribed, liked and shared.
Wealthsimple was a HUGE game changer for me after coming from TD direct investing. Even if TD cut their commission fee, my business will always remain with WS.
My approach is dollar cost averaging, just with my risk tolerance I prefer to add to my position little by little vs lump sum investing. It was very evident this was the right choice for me back in March when the market tanked- I was heavily buying everyday; if I was with TD I would have been charged a lot in fees. Saying that, I do not buy USD stocks only CAD whether individual stocks or an ETF that underlines the US market.
Hey that's good to hear but buying only tsx doesn't give too much diversification. It's better to have some US exchanges too!
@@arashdeepgill952 I buy ETF's that track US market.
@@begley09 look into Direxion and all the SPDR’s if you like
Very informative and easy to understand. The information on DRIPS was useful as well.
Why not just recommend people use both? I started with RBC, transfered all in kind to Questrade when I wanted a cheaper brokerage, then Opened a WST account after discovering that too. Everything costing or paying out in USD I do with QT, and then Canadian securities I do WST. Best of both worlds.
Im sold, thanks. Gonna open WST account soon to get started investing
Constructive review of both platforms! Very well done. 👍🏾
Sure seems like something only a slim margin of people tend to do research, feel confident enough to actually invest, and likely understand how terrible gambling is in general.
Just getting into this but I appreciate the advice.
Just setting up a TSFA and I have some ideas on where I want to research investments for long-term growth.
thanks dude. QUESTRADE GANG
Regarding trade fees: to be fair each company's financials should be taken into consideration. From what I understand Wealthsimple is operating on investor money and Questrade is operating on revenue. Wealthsimple may charge $0 but they are potentially more risky as a company because if funding is pulled, the company goes under. We've already seen Wealthsimple layoff a bunch of people. That's because of over-growth using investor money. Where-as I understand Questrade is profitable which makes them less of a risk to the trading customer. But, you have to pay a fee.
Great vid bro, super informative and discusses the pros and cons of each 👌🏻 👍🏻 👏🏻
Good news - WealthSimple Trade is on PCs now. It's still in development, but it's progress. ;-)
If you purchase a US stock on Wealthsimple Trade, you pay the 1.5-2% conversion, but then say you sell the stock, do you pay another 1.5-2%? Or is that second conversion from USD to CAD covered?
If it's the former, having a 3-4% fee for investing in US companies is a bit ridiculous. That's a huge hit to take. These platforms need to get better, or allow you to hold USD...
Sort of agree, but based on the wealthsimple trade website, that's one of the few only ways they make money atm. For CAD stocks only you won't have to worry much.
its 1.5% each way on Wealthsimple, the 2% was on Questrade. It does happen both ways so its a total of 3%.
Thank you for doing this Brandon! Totally thumbs up for you!
Great videos Brandon! Wondering if you can do a video on tips/ a walk through of rebalancing a portfolio. Much appreciated :)
Thank you for the video Brandon. Those are things I was not aware of. I am fairly new to investing on my own and have appreciated all of your teachings!
I use WS for Canadian stocks and Etf and Questrade for Us Stocks. You can use Norbert Gambit to buy Us stocks with Questrade!!
D j yes
The only complain I have for Questrade is no discount on Drip when company offered % discount for dripping. I am owning shares if AQN on both TD and Questrade. Td's price for dripping AQN is 5% of the market price. Questrade does not give me the discount though.
td allows you to settle trades in usd provided you have a usd brokerage account
My advice for anyone that wants to get involved in the US market but want to limit fees, just purchase ETF's in your Wealthsimple account. If you want individual US stocks, then yeah, I guess Questrade would be the better platform.
What if I want to invest in Canadian and in US market. Does it mean that it’s better to have both platforms - wealthsimple trade for Canadian and Quastrade for US? (In terms of paying less commission fees)
Questrade does not convert your Canadian to US dollars until the end of the business day, so you don't know what the conversion rate will be. Once your conversion is done they don't show you online what your conversion rate was.
You could do both, exclusively Canadian stocks with Wealthsimple Trade, and exclusively US stocks with Questrade
Lucas Noritomi-Hartwig same
I have both, I save my money in more than one broker, more than one bank. I get the benefits of each bank and broker. Some might say that's a headache when tax season comes, but imagine something happened to your Quest Trade account or your bank account becomes compromised. I'd rather spend a day filing my taxes accounting for my various incomes than risk all my money in one institution for the sake of saving a few hours filing my taxes. I don't day trade tho
Hello Brandon, an excellent video comparing both platforms. What are your thoughts on TD Direct Investing and how does it compare to Questrade? Thank you 🙂
Hey Brandon. For those of us using Wealthsimple Trade, would investing in one of Vanguard's US index funds trading on the TSX such as VUN or VFV be a good way of investing in the US market while avoiding currency conversion? Or is CAD converted to USD when buying these funds?
If on the bar it says cad then its a cad funded stock. Vanguard has a cad stock. Look at the market the trade happens in if its nasdaq then your paying conversion, ifvits tsx, tsx-v etc its cad fund ( no exchange fee ) :)