Canadian Discount Brokerages (best brokerages at the top)

The assessment of Online brokerages is based on a variety of different factors: Cost, research, customer service and website layout for determining the best online trading brokerages. 

Note:

Note most of the brokerages have $9.99 trades.  

A review of the following brokerages was done in which four factors were considered. 

- research (25%), cost (35%), usability (20%) and customer service (20%) were considered. 

- Here are the results:

CIBC - Investors Edge - this is the online brokerage for CIBC. The research is good and is from CIBC World Markets for Canadian stocks. The Canadian and US stocks are also covered by Standard and Poors. CIBC offers research from their analysts for Canadian stocks. CIBC offers trades for $6.95 and has no minimum balances.  Note: . 

TD Direct Investing - this is the online brokerage that is owned by TD Bank. It is formerly known as TD Waterhouse. The layout is nice in that you can see your account and your holdings with one click. The research is average and like many of the other brokerages, provides the Standard and Poor's and CFRA's assessment of the stock.  There is an interesting report that provides regarding insider trading.  

 
BMO - Investorline  - this is the discount brokerage by BMO. The research is provided by Morningstar, Ford and  Standard and Poors. The is a is a consensus analysts rating and price targets for the companies.  Their customer service is good. Questions were answered promptly and clearly. 

RBC Direct Investing - The discount brokerage for the Royal Bank (RBC) is RBC Direct investing. RBC Direct Investing provides research from Morningstar. 

Scotia iTrade - Bank of Nova Scotia   - the Scotia iTrade Investing provides you with access to research from Scotiabank's research  department for Canadian stocks. They provide third party research for Canadian and US stocks: Value Engine, Research Team, Thomsen Reuters, First Call and Sabrient. Their customer service is poor. For example they charge $3 month for paper statements and have zero tolerance for people who do not use or have a computer. Scotia Bank research analysts provide analyst reports on Canadian Stocks. They also provide some nice daily reports for stocks that they recommend for various portfolios such as Canadian Income, Equity and US Portfolios. The layout of the website is a little confusing and not as good as TD Waterhouse's. Overall their poor customer service drags Scotiabank iTrade to the bottom of the list.

Credential Direct

Disnat - the discount brokerage offering from the Desjardins Financial Group.

HSBC - Invest Direct - HSBC Invest Direct. The discount brokerage for the bank HSBC. 

Interactive Brokers  

National Bank Direct Brokerage - National Bank Direct brokerage provides Morningstar research and National Bank Analysts for securities.

Qtrade - the discount brokerage for Qtrade Financial Group. They use Morningstar for their research. 

Questrade