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Gold/Mining/Energy : Day trading in Canada -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: keith massey who wrote (4319)	11/4/2000 7:52:41 PM
From: Ally	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4467

Keith, OSC has no legal power that can prevent U.S. firms to open Canadian accounts. They are merely barking (but can't bite) at the U.S. firms so that these firms will register in Ont. and provide competition here (so, sez OSC, see today's Financial Post). Another reason why OSC is barking is so to retaliate, since Cdn brokers can't open accounts for U.S. residents. OSC is saying, its not fair that U.S. brokers can open Canadian accounts, but not the other way. If anyone wants to continue maintaining accounts with U.S. firms, there is no law being broken ...according to NP article. However, you may not be helping out bringing competition into Ont. If U.S. firms desire to have the business of Canadians, they should register here. I spoke to a person at OSC and apparently it is very easy and inexpensive to register here, if the firms are already registered in U.S. When a U.S broker register here, it can market and solicit our accounts. They win market share, we win by having more competition come in, and lower the commissions to the level in U.S. Only TD Waterhouse are requiring Canadians to transfer U.S. accounts to Cdn T.D. Obviously, they are doing it for self serving reasons... namely, higher commission in Cda. If I had an account with a U.S. broker, I'll stay put, cause there is nothing legal to force me to close the account. However, to help out bring more competition in Canada, I would say, Canadians should not deal with U.S. firms unless they are registered here. If they want our accounts, they should register here. The more of them register here, the more intense the pressure to bring down commissions. I think TD, Etrade, Action Direct, etc. can still be profitabble with commissions at $15. After all, if the brokers in U.S can be wealthy at this commission rate, why can't Cdn brokers do the same. Now that they don't need a pair of eyes to view each trade, there is no excuse to continue with a $29 trade. We can all do a favour for ourselves by (a) emailing to our discount broker and ask for lower commission now that suitability review is over, and (b) ask the U.S. broker firms ...CyberCorp, ABwaitly etc. to register here so that they can market to Canadians solicit for our business. I think OSC did a poor job explaining why they are barking at U.S firms. The U.S. firms that are responding are doing so not because they are "afraid" of OSC, but because they don't want to rile OSC in case they do decide to come into Ontario. Probably good sign if they want to be on side with OSC.. indicating they may have plans to open up here.