Whats the best day trading brokers for Canadians? Whether you are trading a small account, larger
account, long biased or short biased, trading stock or options, I have the answers for you
in this video.
So theres tons of videos on YouTube on various trading brokers for Americans trading in the
US market. But what about us Canadians who are also working hard to make that US dollars
trading in the US stock market because lets be real, making CAD right now is just…Let
just put it this way... a little bit sad right now.
Let me clarify first, I am indeed a Canadian, living in Canada, and day trading and investing
in the US stock market. I have many different brokerage accounts for day trading long and
short, swing trading, and longer term investing with TFSA or RRSP, and yes I do have some
free commission trading accounts as well.
So we’ll dive into the details about how to choose a broker as a Canadian depending
on your trading or investing style,and I’ll compare the different pros and cons of each
broker. As always, if you enjoy videos like this, make sure to smash the like button to
support a fellow Canadian right here.
So first let’s talk about Questrade, which is perhaps the most well known broker in Canada.
It’s broker I would recommend for day trading large cap stocks and options, as well as swing
trading and long term investing with RRSP or TFSA. But if you predominately trade low
float small cap stocks, do not use questrade, i have better alternatives later.
Questrade has two commission structures for the active day trader accounts. For the fixed
rate, you have a flat fee of $4.95 per trade. And that applies to whichever currency the
stock you are buying or selling is in. So either $4.95 CAD or USD. They also have variable
rates for 1 cent per share to a maximum of $6.95. So depending on your account size and
the type of stocks you trade. You can have two flexible options for fee structure to
choose from.
To day trade on Questrade platform you’ll also need data subscription packages. For
questrade the all in one packages come at an hefty price of $89.95, either in USD or
CAD depending on what you trade. But if you are a very active trader, those fees are easily
rebatable.
Their platform Questrade IQ edge offers great charting for technical analysis, and interface
is easy to use as well. So that's one of the many things I love about questrade. Also,
their customer service is amazing and you can easily reach them through online chat.
I find this extremely convenient and beneficial especially when im doing moving positions
and funds around when it comes to TFSA and RRSP.
Personally I use Questrade strictly for swing trading large cap stocks and sometimes options
in my margin account. And I use their TFSA and RRSP as my long term investing accounts,
where I just buy and hold US stocks and some ETF’s, and I rarely sell. If you are thinking
of opening a questrade account, you can get $50 free commissions when you sign up through
my referral link below.
But the cons for Questrade is of course their commission fees are more expensive. Which
doeesnt really matter to me since im using this as longer term swing trading and investing.
But they do have terrible stock availability when it comes to shorting stocks. So if you
are looking at a broker’s ability to short, interactive brokers the better option in my
opinion. ---------
Interactive brokers is the first broker I got when I started day trading six years ago.
And of course, what attracted me to interactive brokers, just like most people, is their low
cost fees.
At first glance, IB is indeed a lot cheaper than most other brokers out there. Basically
the cost for buying and selling US listed stocks is $0.005/ US per share, with a minimum
of $1USD per trade. As for the TSX listed stocks, the cost would be $0.01 CAD/ share.
With also a minimum of $1 CAD per trade. As for options trading, the fees are pretty cheap
as well.
So that's Interactive brokers fees at a glance. Seems pretty cheap right? But where they really
get your money is with the market data subscription packages. Interactive brokers offer a list
data packages for all the exchanges, equities, futures, options and bonds… all separately.
For an average day trader trading the US equities market such as myself, this is what the subscriptions
would look like and it adds up to about $30 us a month. That includes things like Equities
and Options quote for nasdaq exchanges, level ii etc etc.
Now if you trade the TSX listed stocks You’ll need to subscribe to additional Canadian market
data subscriptions, or OTC market data if you trade those. So the cost would add up
as a monthly subscription.
------- Next we have Thinkorswim. And before you ask,
theres no free commission trading in Thinkorwim Canada, theres no free commission trading
with Interactive brokers either. The only thing thats free to do, is if you remember
to hit the like button. Its completely free to do, and it’ll help with my channel a
lot.
but yes Canadians can still open a Thinkorswim account with TD Waterhouse. The minimum to
get live market data used to be $5000 US, but unfortunately it’s been raised to $25K.
Sorry about that guys.
What I love the most about TOS is their powerful charting features, platform customization,
and their On Demand feature. However, the platform comes with a not so pretty price
tag. Their trade commissions are a flat fee of $6.95 US per trade. That is a pretty steep
commission price. If you trade more than 10-20 trades a day, that cost adds up really quickly.
I personally dont use Thinkorswim to place any trade executions. I just have my good
old $5K sitting there in the account to maintain my live market data and use their charts.
However, ever since they made Thinkorswim commission free in the US, the entire platform
has been extremely laggy, and there has been many times in the past few months where all
the charts froze.
So honestly I would not recommend using Thinkorswim for Canadians to day trade, especially now
that they’ve raised their account minimum to $25k. Leaving $5K in there to keep market
data is one thing, 25 is just too much in my opinion. Oh one last con i should remind
you is that you can only trade US listed stocks, no Canadian securities on TOS. Sorry guys,
I gotta apologize like a good ol’ Canadian here.
Next let’s talk about Trade Zero international, which is an off shore broker in Bahamas thats
known of their extensive locate list for traders to short hard to borrow stocks. And they also
allow Canadian traders to open accounts. So if you have a smaller account and want to
short these hard to borrow stocks, you can consider Trade zero.
They are known for their low account minimums for as low as $500. But how much you deposit
in the account will determine how much leverage you get when day trading. And honestly, I
wouldn’t open an account with less than $4-$5K.
I do have an account with Trade Zero, but I use it only as my backup account when it
comes to shorting. I have a main account for shorting which we’ll go over in a little
bit. And the biggest reason I don’t prefer to use Trade zero is because their Zero pro
platform executions are extremely clunky.
Sometimes the fills and the speed are a little bit off. And if you’re trading larger size,
every single cent counts. It doesn’t happen often but all it takes is once to ruin a trade.
On top of that, they don’t provide ECN rebates at TZ international. And there are tons of
fees that just eat up profits every month.
That being said, if you have less than $30K to fund your account, Trade zero is really
the only option for Canadians who focus on shorting hard to borrow stocks. Just make
sure you read all the fine prints and their fees schedule. I have done a trade zero review
and tutorial for you to check out.
But if you’re a baller starting out with already over 30K, and you want to short hard
to borrow stocks, then I highly recommend Centerpoint securities. They are the best
broker for Canadians when it comes to shorting low float stocks.
Their borrow fees and commissions are very reasonable, they offer ECN rebates, and platform
integration with DAS trader, which is the best execution platform out there wiht the
fastest fills and market data feed.
Now finally lets talk about these $0 commission brokers that so many people are asking me
about. And no, there is no Webull or Robhinhood for canadians. I know you see me using some
of these broker accounts based in the US, and thats because I used to study and work
in the US and I have status there.
The only free commission trading app in Canada is called Wealth simple trade. But guess what,
it’s not meant for day trading. On wealthsimple trade’s official website, they specifically
say they discourage day trading on their trading app. And they can flag your account and block
transactions at their discretion.
In addition to that, if you try to buy and sell US listed stocks, you’ll pay a 1.5%
FX transaction fee whether you are buying or selling, since the app doesn’t allow
you to keep USD balance.
So in other words, wealthsimple trade app is only good for swing trading Canadian stocks,
which is what I do. They do not offer margin, but they offer either cash or TFSA accounts.
And to be honest, this app is for me to gamble and I have a few weed stocks here to play
with.
Under the same brand umbrella theres also wealthsimple investing, which is their Robo
investing service focusing on ETF’s of various sectors and asset allocation according to
your personal risk tolerance. This is made for people who want to just invest regularly
and take a completely hands off approach and let the algos rebalance positions for you.
And yes I do have a TFSA and RRSP account with them for long term investing. Since im
actively day trading every single day and using that to generate my main income, I want
my investing to be stress free on autopilot and just have the contributions made automatically
each month. Its been great. I look at them maybe once every six months and i never touch
anything.
I know I talked about over six different brokers for Canadians now for both trading and investing.
So let me just sum it up reall quickly the best broker in my opinion for each trading
style and purpose.
If you’re day trading and predominantly long biased, on small caps I would use Interactive
Brokers, large cap and options, i would use Questrade. If you’re short biased with a
small account, TZ, big account, Centerpoint.
If you’re looking to swing trading and investing long term, including with tax advantage accounts,
I would use Questrade or Wealthsimple robo investing.
If you have some money sitting around left to play with here and there, maybe waelthsimple
trade. Now if you’re rich and just want to park $25k somewhere and get to use some
pretty looking charts, then I’d open
with TD Thinkroswim.