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EK69
09-26-2014, 07:00 PM
I'm looking to start investing for long term purposes with a few grand I have and am trying to figure out where to do all this lol

Banks I've found are expensive as fuck to trade with...

Questrade comes widely recommended on the internet as is virtual brokers for being really cheap.

The only stocks I'm looking at are dividend paying stocks to setup a DRIP with but also just learned about DRIP vs synthetic DRIP (where you can't buy partial stocks with dividend payouts?) Something about a transfer agent has to be used?

1) This I don't understand as different stocks have different transfer agents right? So how does that work..?

2) where do you do your trades? Does transferring money to them take a long ass time? Are you happy with them or would you switch somewhere else?

3) this is either gonna be in RRSP or TFSA, not sure which. I read USD stocks should be held in RRSP to avoid tax on the dividends?

I'll add more questions as they come lol

roopi
09-26-2014, 07:22 PM
$9.99 is not expensive. The convenience of transferring money in and out is worth the extra $3 you might pay per trade.

RBC and others offer free DRIP investing.

1. Don't worry about transfer agents. This means nothing to you as an investor.

2. Use a major bank and it is quick and free.

3. Don't think this one is true.

Sugarphreak
09-28-2014, 10:20 AM
...

macman64
09-28-2014, 10:38 AM
I am with quest trade and have been happy. It takes about 3 business days to transfer money back and forth. This is pretty standard for an EFT between any organization.

realazy
09-28-2014, 10:03 PM
Number 3 is true. RRSP accounts are exempt from the 15% withholding tax for US dividends.

EK69
09-28-2014, 11:19 PM
So what about DRIP vs synthetic DRIP?

I won't get enough dividends from any company to be able to buy a full stock from it, so the partial stocks make more sense. However it's not possible with typical DRIP? Can anyone provide some info about that?

sabad66
09-29-2014, 06:19 AM
I would suggest going with your bank as well. With all of them doing 9.95 trades now, I really don't see an advantage to Questrade. 3 days to wait for a transfer is very annoying, and it's nice to have your finances all in one online banking screen vs scattered.

Fwiw I have accounts at BMO Investorline and Questrade. The only reason I still have my Questrade is that I'm too cheap to pay the $150 transfer fee :p As soon as they have a promotion to cover the transfer fee, I will be out

heavyfuel
09-29-2014, 08:36 AM
I used Questrade... and despite being completely clueless about investing I can say for sure that their customer service sucks.

CapnCrunch
09-29-2014, 11:26 AM
Originally posted by realazy
Number 3 is true. RRSP accounts are exempt from the 15% withholding tax for US dividends.

+1. Definitely true.

EK69
09-29-2014, 09:38 PM
I'm looking into TD eseries mutual funds also
What do you investor guys think about those in general? Their performance seems to be OK from the few I looked at (yes, past performance doesn't equal future guarantee lol) as opposed to some other mutual funds or ETF's I looked at.

What are some ETF's that you guys have that are good and I should look into? :love:

If I do the TD eseries thing it'll have to be a mutual fund account with them which is fine. Its free to buy looks like with the e-series account... Which goes well with my small amount to invest (few grand only).

The other option I am looking at is RBC direct investing with 9.95 per trade which is cool too I guess (gonna try their free practice account to see how the setup is)

CapnCrunch
09-30-2014, 08:02 AM
Originally posted by EK69
I'm looking into TD eseries mutual funds also
What do you investor guys think about those in general? Their performance seems to be OK from the few I looked at (yes, past performance doesn't equal future guarantee lol) as opposed to some other mutual funds or ETF's I looked at.

What are some ETF's that you guys have that are good and I should look into? :love:

If I do the TD eseries thing it'll have to be a mutual fund account with them which is fine. Its free to buy looks like with the e-series account... Which goes well with my small amount to invest (few grand only).

The other option I am looking at is RBC direct investing with 9.95 per trade which is cool too I guess (gonna try their free practice account to see how the setup is)

I know Questrade and VB both offer free ETF purchasing. You can buy one share or 1000, and it's still free.

I think mutual funds are a joke personally. They rarely out perform the market, and you get charged a good chunk by the fund managers. ETF's are a much better option imo.

EK69
09-30-2014, 09:54 AM
Which ETF's are a much better option in your opinion?

So far I was looking at just doing some TD e-series funds in a TFSA (so I don't have to learn about how to calculate capital gains or losses and some shit about adjusted cost base? Or something along those lines lol)

Also wanted to buy some bank stocks...

No idea what else haha. :banghead:

Off topic.. Can't I change the thread title?? I changed by editing my first post but it still shows the same..

realazy
09-30-2014, 03:56 PM
Look into the Canadian Couch Potato. It's very simple to do in a Questrade account because you can buy ETFs for free, you can dollar cost average over time easily for 5-10 ETFs.

Periodically you would add cash to rebalance to buy whatever is underallocated in your portfolio. It forces you to buy low. I'm starting this with my RRSP because I don't want to manage too many individual stocks. I have enough fun in my TFSA and margin accounts.

sabad66
09-30-2014, 04:27 PM
Good point about the free ETF buying from Questrade... not sure what big banks charge for ETFs but would be worth researching before deciding on where to open your account

triplep
10-01-2014, 05:50 AM
Originally posted by CapnCrunch


I know Questrade and VB both offer free ETF purchasing. You can buy one share or 1000, and it's still free.

I think mutual funds are a joke personally. They rarely out perform the market, and you get charged a good chunk by the fund managers. ETF's are a much better option imo.


The mutual funds that he is talking about appear to be index mutual funds (so very similar to an ETF).

The MER on them is low especially the TD-E series, and I would say that it is inline with most MER's that are charged on ETFs.

Other than that, if he has no account set up, why not look at the index mutual funds that tangerine has? 1.07 MER across the board and no additional fees. They have a few different portfolio's but are all based on indexes. You would be hard pressed to get an aggregate MER of 1.07 or lower if you had more than 4 asset classes.

CapnCrunch
10-01-2014, 10:46 AM
Originally posted by triplep



The mutual funds that he is talking about appear to be index mutual funds (so very similar to an ETF).

The MER on them is low especially the TD-E series, and I would say that it is inline with most MER's that are charged on ETFs.

Other than that, if he has no account set up, why not look at the index mutual funds that tangerine has? 1.07 MER across the board and no additional fees. They have a few different portfolio's but are all based on indexes. You would be hard pressed to get an aggregate MER of 1.07 or lower if you had more than 4 asset classes.

You can get index etf's MER's as low as 0.08%. I don't know why you'd give up the extra 1% a year. If you start with $100,000 and use 8% as the stock markets historical returns, that 1% would cost you almost $700,000 in 40 years time.

If you find a mutual fund you like, there's almost always a similar etf with a lower MER. No sense throwing away that much money.

EK69
10-01-2014, 01:58 PM
Which would be some very low MER ETF's?
I'll read all that info at Canadian couch potatoe Thx for the link


Yeah the TD e-series funds that I'm looking at all have "index" in the name so looks like they are index funds which are similar to ETF's from my understanding and reading. MER is between 0.33% to 0.5% I believe for the ones I was looking at... with minimum buys being $100 at a time.

Problem is I dunno which to choose and what to base that particular choice on lol :dunno: but I suppose the benefit of being an index fund is that it tends to follow the same trend as what it's trying to copy... Is that right? Plus they are mixed with so many types of stocks and sectors..? So better to choose multiple ETF's or ETF like mutual funds and ride them out then?

I guess I need to find some ETF's which have even lower MER
In order to decide between them or the e-series from TD..

Some vanguard based ETF's have come up a lot during my searches on the web, along with ishare and blackrock or blackwater I can't remember now lol

J.M.
10-01-2014, 02:08 PM
http://www.topyields.nl/Top-dividend-yields-of-TSX60.php

J.M.
10-01-2014, 02:10 PM
Originally posted by J.M.
http://www.topyields.nl/Top-dividend-yields-of-TSX60.php

I had a couple of these in my questrade TFSA.

roopi
10-07-2014, 04:19 PM
CIBC announced $6.95 trades this week. There is no restrictions on this. :thumbsup:

Hopefully the others follow soon similar to the $29.00 drop to $9.95.

EK69
10-08-2014, 01:04 AM
Yeah I saw that too.
I'm thinking I'll just go with questrade
U can buy stocks there too for minimum 4.95 I believe

Now just gotta decide what accounts to open...
- TFSA for sure
- Maybe RRSP too but probably won't contribute until I'm maxed out in TFSA first I think since that's better for me (low student income so low tax bracket which will likely be below the income threshold anyways... Makes more sense to contribute after I make more money per year I think?)

- Maybe margin once I figure out if I'll even need that one or not...

Does it make more sense to contribute to TFSA first before RRSP if I'm making less than 11k per year?

CapnCrunch
10-08-2014, 09:24 AM
Originally posted by EK69
Yeah I saw that too.
I'm thinking I'll just go with questrade
U can buy stocks there too for minimum 4.95 I believe

Now just gotta decide what accounts to open...
- TFSA for sure
- Maybe RRSP too but probably won't contribute until I'm maxed out in TFSA first I think since that's better for me (low student income so low tax bracket which will likely be below the income threshold anyways... Makes more sense to contribute after I make more money per year I think?)

- Maybe margin once I figure out if I'll even need that one or not...

Does it make more sense to contribute to TFSA first before RRSP if I'm making less than 11k per year?

Definitely the TFSA, but I think you can put as much as you want into your rrsp, and then save the tax deduction for future years when you make more money as well. This probably makes more sense if you have like 100K you want to invest.

EK69
10-08-2014, 02:36 PM
Thx for all your replies guys and helping a noob out lol

I only have 5k max to invest so I'm thinking I'll put it in the TFSA since I won't make enough money to be taxed on it anyways. So there's no point for me to put it in an RRSP then try to deduct that from my income right? I'm already below the lowest tax bracket so I'm gonna get all the tax I paid back as it is.. And this way I don't have to keep track of my RRSP investments to deduct in future years lol (which is gonna be 2 years or so while I'm still in school... Or does turbo tax do that automatically for me haha)

New question with ETF's
Does the US dividend withholding tax apply to ETF's that track US markets and pay a dividend?? I'll probably set them up for DRIP anyways but just wondering if I should buy and hold these in my TFSA or my RRSP? I'm looking at either vanguard or ishare ETF's I think even though there's a crap load of them available..

I know individual US based stocks should be in the RRSP account to avoid this extra tax but what about ETF's that are indexing US or international markets?

I'm going with a 25/25/25/25 split I guess since I can tolerate the risk and have like 30 years before I would touch this money...