Hi Anna,
Before you switch there might be something you need to check out. About a year ago I was also quite fed up with the high commissions I was paying BMO, so I threatened to move my account to one of the new discount (American) brokerages if I didn't hear any reasonable explanations from them about their commission structure. Since I have a reasonable-sized account I got a call from one of their IR people. He suggested that there might be a catch with the apparently cheap commissions from the Americans that I may not be aware of.
Notice, he said, that the commissions are all quoted per trade. Since my BMO portfolio was (and still is) 100% junior pm stocks, he suggested that I could end up paying more commissions with the Americans than I had anticipated. The reason, he said, is that if, for example, you place an order to buy 10000 shares of xyz, and you get filled for 500 shares right away, 2000 shares a couple of hours later, another 3000 shares after that and the remaining 4500 shares just before closing, the American brokerage will count it as 4 trades, so you end up paying 4 times the supposedly 'cheap' commission. He suggested that switching might be okay if I were trading in highy liquid tech and s&p stocks, but he wouldn't advice it if I am trading illiquid gold juniors.
I would suggest that you clarify this issue with TradeFreedom before you switch. Perhaps the BMO guy was blowing smoke up my ass, but by then I had already decided to stay with BMO for other reasons, so I didn't bother to call TradeFreedom to check it out. If you haven't already discussed this with TradeFreedom already, it might be a good idea to do so now.
Good luck. |
