ULTIMATE Questrade Review 2016: Um olhar em profundidade Escrito / Atualizado por Emma Li em domingo, novembro 27 2016 Avaliação do Editor: (90) 8211 Classificação do Usuário: (95) 8211 Quando se trata de investir em 2016 a paisagem comercial é banhado e Estourando as costuras com incontáveis corretoras financeiras. Grandes nomes como BMO InvestorLine, RBC Investimento Direto, Investimentos Directos TD, Interactive Brokers, Scotia iTrade, e pelo menos uma dúzia mais estão disponíveis para escolher. Infelizmente, através de uma análise mais profunda, não se pode distinguir facilmente diferenças distintivas entre eles, especialmente dentro do círculo dos grandes bancos. A maioria das corretoras principalmente fazer suas receitas através de novos e inventivos concoctions de inúmeras e contínuas taxas empurradas para os titulares de sua conta. Essas taxas incluem, mas não se limitam a, taxas administrativas, taxas de instalação, taxas de atividade, taxas de inatividade, taxas ocultas e taxas após horas. Estes custos adicionais podem ser finos e dândi para a fração percentual de comerciantes de alto volume, simplesmente porque seus volumes de comércio puro e ganhos realizados podem potencialmente compensar essas despesas ao longo do tempo. No entanto, para o resto de nós essas taxas adicionadas e consistentes são um lembrete de que ao longo do tempo a casa sempre wins8221. Use o código de oferta: Canadá para receber 50 em cortes de Questrade. Investidores iniciantes geralmente olhar para o seu banco local para abrir sua conta de negociação principalmente por conveniência, uma vez que já possuem uma ou mais contas pessoais de chequing / poupança com esse banco e assim abrir uma conta de negociação é um simples telefonema de distância. O desafortunado desastre com essa abordagem é que os grandes bancos, e para esse assunto, praticamente todas as outras corretoras no Canadá irá cobrar-lhe um braço e uma perna para qualquer tipo de atividade que você faz (e don8217t fazer) em sua conta de negociação. Sim, mesmo nesta era expansiva da Internet, onde tudo é auto-serviço conveniência 24 horas por dia, os cronogramas de comissão em toda a linha são longos, robustos e muito corporativos bottom-line amigável. Com taxas padrão em 29-49 por o comércio que é um lugar comum um can8217t ajuda mas pergunta se a indústria inteira for parte de algum esquema de fixação de preço. Onde estão as escolhas The Rise of Questrade. Fundada em 1999, esta empresa queria fazer e ser algo diferente. Vendo o crescente descontentamento de comerciantes ativos e inativos que estavam cansados de ver seus ganhos de mercado lavados em um dilúvio de novas taxas de corretagem por outras empresas Questrade começou um processo de racionalização de toda a abordagem de investimento. E, ao fazê-lo, acho que eles fizeram um belo trabalho de impressão. No resto desta revisão, vou explorar Questrade e suas ofertas coletivas em termos de bom e ruim. Primeiro um pouco sobre mim. Eu não sou um comerciante altamente agressivo agressivo. A maioria das vezes eu vou tomar a abordagem buy-and-hold como o meu estilo de investimento testado e verdadeiro. E assim quando eu comprar em uma empresa que eu faço isso para o longo prazo. No entanto, às vezes eu faço que coceira e começar a negociar como uma pessoa louca, mas isso não acontece muitas vezes. Questrade oferece um bem-crafted indústria 8216democratic pricing8217 comissão de negociação de ações: 1cent por ação com uma carga mínima de 4.95 / trade e uma taxa máxima de comissão de teto de 9.95 8212 ideal para investidores de longo prazo. Os comerciantes ativos (ou qualquer pessoa a qualquer momento) têm a opção alternativa de 1cent por ação (1cent mínimo / 6,95 máximo), ou uma taxa de comissão de estoque plana de 4,95 8212 ideal para negociações de alto volume de ações. Opções de investimento para esses usuários ativos vêm com um atraente 4,95 75cent por contrato. E o processo de se inscrever para este programa alternativo simplesmente envolve a assinatura de um dos diversos Questrade8217s vários planos de dados de mercado avançado. Isso deve ser olhado novamente Não é um erro de digitação Questrade oferece os comércios mais baratos em todo o Canadá. Seu ponto de preço é tão impressionante que realmente incentiva novos e / ou pequenos investidores para entrar e participar no jogo de investimento, enquanto também seduzir os comerciantes ativos descontentes de outras corretoras para transferir em (sem custo). Eles tornam muito claro que eles não cobram taxas de instalação, taxas anuais, nem taxas de inatividade (mais sobre isso mais tarde) em qualquer um dos seus serviços que é uma mudança bem-vinda para a norma da indústria. No entanto, para aqueles que procuram mais de um toque ativamente gerenciado portfólio há um novo serviço especializado que agora oferecem a uma taxa nominal anual que será discutido em profundidade mais tarde nesta revisão. Há algumas outras vantagens dignas de nota fornecidas pela Questrade. A primeira é a capacidade de comprar fundos do ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) sem nenhuma taxa de comissão 8212 eles estão livres para comprar Com tantos investidores se voltando para ETFs nestes dias devido a seus MERs baixos e alcance diversificado é um maravilhoso sopro de ar fresco Ser capaz de fazê-lo sem nenhum custo. Questrade pode ser um dos primeiros corretores de desconto no Canadá para fazer tal coisa, e eu aplaudo-los. Em segundo lugar, a Questrade oferece IPOs (Initial Public Offering). Para aqueles que não estão familiarizados com IPOs, estes são simplesmente a primeira venda de novas questões por uma empresa privada para o público. Questrade regularmente tem acesso a uma ampla gama de novas ofertas, tornando-os disponíveis para os clientes. Eles oferecem vários tipos de contas: Contas de Margem (por exemplo, Individual, Confiança Informal, Negócios) Registradas (eg TFSA, RRSP, RESP) Forex (FX) e Contrato por Diferença (CFD) Trading Managed Investing E fornece acesso aos seguintes serviços: Por ação 8211 4,95 / mínimo de negociação / 9,95 custo máximo Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) O custo varia 8211 99,95 / ano mínimo 2,000 em ativos ou mais Novo registro de conta O processo de abertura de uma conta on-line é extremamente intuitivo, indolor e muito rápido (2 minutos para sua conta geral, acesso a plataformas de prática e discussão da comunidade / total de 15 minutos para abrir contas de negociação). Você precisará do seu número de seguro social (SIN), informações da conta bancária e detalhes do empregador (ou fonte de renda se estiver desempregado). E embora eles tenham uma alternativa de impressão offline, eu recomendo altamente seu processo online seguro porque reduz a quantidade de erros de gravação e problemas de legibilidade e suporta e-Signature para verificação pessoal on-line (via seu SIN). Use o código de oferta: Canadá para receber 50 em cortes de Questrade. Registrar uma Página Inicial Contratos de Seleção de Conta Uma das primeiras coisas que você deve fazer ao se inscrever é criar um ID de usuário (8-20 caracteres) e senha (mínimo de 8 caracteres, incluindo 1 maiúscula, 1 minúscula e 1 numeração Ou símbolo) para sua nova conta. Em dias mais cedo Questrade teve um processo automatizado que gerasse e emitisse por correio electrónico esta senha, e junto com seu email address servido como suas credenciais preliminares do início de uma sessão. Esta velha forma tornou-se um risco de segurança e por isso, felizmente, mudou de volta em 2011 para o que você vê agora. O benefício de criar seu próprio ID de usuário e senha também torna muito mais conveniente retornar a um aplicativo incompleto em um momento posterior. O tempo de espera das sessões após 30 minutos de inatividade, dando-lhe tempo suficiente para coletar documentos e credenciais necessários e analisar os detalhes introduzidos. A Questrade oferece duas coleções de contas: Self-directed e Managed Investing. Se você quiser ter controle total sobre sua conta (s), em seguida, auto-dirigida é para você. Para aqueles que querem uma abordagem profissionalmente gerenciada por uma equipe real (Questrade Wealth Management divisão) nos bastidores que considera cuidadosamente as suas metas pessoais e tolerância ao risco para combinar, gerenciar, monitorar e ajustar para os melhores investimentos sem o seu envolvimento diário, em seguida, gerenciado Investir (conhecido como Portfolio IQ no vocabulário Questrade8217s) é a melhor opção. No entanto, ao contrário de auto-dirigido, Portfolio QI vem a um preço 8212 uma taxa de gestão 99 / ano mínimo. Na minha opinião auto-dirigida é tudo que um nunca vai precisar considerar como tomar decisões de investimento informado é bastante simples para os recém-chegados mesmo estes dias e para compostas sobre isso, as contas auto-dirigidas não têm taxas (fora da comissão de comércio usual) Seus primos de investimento gerenciados. I8217ll ir em profundidade sobre a sua oferta de investimento administrado em uma seção posterior. Depois de se inscrever on-line (don8217t esqueça de usar o código de oferta Questrade durante a inscrição) você é capaz de fazer login imediatamente em sua nova conta e dar uma olhada ao redor. No entanto, para ativar oficialmente a sua conta (para iniciar a negociação) é necessário um depósito inicial 8212 auto-dirigido: 1.000 para contas de margem, 1.000 USD para contas cambiais (depósitos CAD são convertidos automaticamente para USD), 5.000 para spreads de opções comerciais, 25.000 Para escrever / vender opções descobertas, e investir administrado (Portfolio IQ) requer pelo menos um depósito inicial. Uma vez que este depósito mínimo inicial tenha limpado Questrade e-mails que uma mensagem de confirmação. Para aplicações offline, você será contatado por um representante confirmando que a negociação pode começar. Leva 1-3 dias úteis após se inscrever na sua conta para começar a operar. A maior parte do processo está aguardando que os fundos sejam recebidos e processados pela Questrade. Uma vez que tudo é um ir, manter um saldo de capital mínimo de 250 é essencial para manter sua conta ativa em boa posição. Questrade suporta vários métodos para financiar sua conta, incluindo EFT (de contas bancárias CAD), transferências eletrônicas, cheques, depósitos pré-autorizados, ordens de pagamento, rascunhos, certificados de ações, transferências de corretor para corretor e de outras contas existentes da Questrade seu nome). Deve-se anotar though que você não pode usar o método de EFT para emitir o USD a seu cliente de Questrade. O inverso é possível onde você pode retirar fundos USD para uma conta bancária em USD (eles exigem um cheque anulado ou um formulário de contrato de depósito pré-autorizado assinado e carimbado pelo banco). Para depositar USD você pode configurar um acordo de depósito pré-autorizado com Questrade que leva cerca de 1-5 dias úteis, ou enviar um cheque certificado / cheque bancário para seu escritório, ou transferir os fundos do USD diretamente para sua conta. Alternativamente, você também pode converter seu saldo CAD existente (dentro de sua conta) para USD usando a ferramenta Fundos de câmbio (encontrado em Meus pedidos), que pode levar até 24 horas para processar ou tirar vantagem do Gambit Norbert8217s (as conversões bem-sucedidas foram confirmadas ). O financiamento da sua margem (ou outra conta não registrada) por tipo de moeda será automaticamente colocado em uma subconta (mais sobre sub-contas mais tarde) do mesmo tipo (eles não realizam conversões automáticas 8212 você deve executar a solicitação em seu próprio). As retiradas eletrônicas demoram aproximadamente 3 dias úteis para processar e chegar em uma conta bancária. Uma interessante nota relacionada é que a Questrade continua a ser a única corretora no Canadá a permitir que a dupla moeda (CAD e USD) seja realizada simultaneamente em contas registradas (ie, RRSP, RESP, TFSA, LIRA, RIF, LIF) Em si vai economizar uma enorme quantidade de dinheiro de taxas de conversão desnecessárias. Em abril do ano passado, a Questrade lançou uma sutil mas importante revisão de sua política de taxas de inatividade. It8217s na verdade não tão ruim quando você examinar os detalhes. Se alguma coisa é bastante razoável. Como tem sido conhecido há muito tempo Questrade não cobra uma taxa de inatividade, mas este ajuste de política pode potencialmente cobrar 24,95 (sem impostos) por trimestre civil. Se, no entanto, você fizer pelo menos um comércio comissionável por trimestre (uma vez a cada 3 meses) você não receberá qualquer taxa de inatividade. Se você for inativo por um quarto e começa carregado esta taxa, mas vai então sobre fazer pelo menos um comércio no quarto seguinte você receberá até 24.95 em comércios sem comissão. Contas de caridade e forex, indivíduos com 25 anos de idade ou menos, bem como qualquer nova conta aberta por apenas 6 meses estão isentos dessa taxa (você não será cobrado por estar inativo). Além disso, todos os clientes da Questrade e domicílios com o mesmo endereço físico, com ativos de capital combinado de pelo menos 5.000 estão isentos. Para a maioria dos investidores esta mudança é trivial, pois seus ativos são quase sempre mais de 5.000, e assim nunca será cobrado essa taxa de inatividade. Como assinalamos anteriormente, acho que esta mudança é perfeitamente razoável e ainda milhas melhor do que todas as outras corretoras de desconto que não só cobram uma taxa de inatividade, sem exceções, eles fazem isso com mais freqüência (cada mês) e tack em inúmeras taxas ocultas Que Questrade não faz. Login de Membro Seu painel de controle principal de account8217s é conhecido como myQuestrade e, muito simplesmente, é uma bela experiência com organização bem pensada e apelo visual. Alguém colocou um monte de amor nesta área 8212 proporcionando uma experiência consistente, totalmente imersiva e responsiva, acessível em smartphones, tablets, laptops e desktops. Esse painel integra totalmente a negociação e o gerenciamento de contas de forma transparente, dando acesso imediato a títulos de compra / venda, acessando ferramentas de pesquisa, usando uma biblioteca completa de aplicativos de parceiros (e API de desenvolvedores), exibindo sua atividade de conta, analisando saldos e posições, gerenciando Seus dados pessoais, ver declarações, efetuar transferências de fundos dentro e fora de suas contas, fazer o upload / download de documentos, trocar moeda CAD / USD, tomar ações corporativas em comunicações aos acionistas, transferir posições, abrir contas adicionais, E interagir com fundos mútuos. MyQuestrade Home Investimento Resumo Centro de fundos mútuos Ao efetuar login na sua conta pela primeira vez, é solicitado que você selecione uma base base padrão. Uma base é onde você gostaria Questrade para colocá-lo diretamente cada vez que você log in Você tem uma escolha de qualquer plataforma de negociação ou gestão de contas. Apesar de ser uma economia de tempo conveniente, você pode pular entre cada um a qualquer momento através de um botão de navegação sempre visível. Uma vez que você fez sua escolha, Questrade percorre um guia de usuário interativo sobre como usar o ambiente. As contas 8217s consistem em 10 dígitos numéricos (por exemplo 12345678-90). Este é um grande salto de seu tamanho alfanumérico de 6 caracteres antes de 2011 e, como tal, alguns bancos externos foram relatados para ainda impor um limite de 8 caracteres para contas de beneficiário quando você tentar enviar dinheiro para Questrade. Para contornar isso, você só precisa fornecer os primeiros 8 dígitos da sua conta Questrade e os fundos ainda chegarão com sucesso. Se você precisar de ajuda em praticamente qualquer coisa, você sempre pode usar a sessão on-line da Questrade Live Help (geralmente acessível do lado de cima ou da direita do site Questrade8217s) 8212 operacional em dias úteis (exceto feriados) das 8:00 am 8211 8:00 pm HUSA. Descobri que usar o Live Help é muito mais rápido do que chamar seus escritórios. E depois de falar com vários de seus representantes on-line (aqueles que lidam com novas contas potenciais e outros que lidam com contas existentes) eu achei que eles estão muito bem informados, profissionais e rápidos em suas respostas. Todos eles também levou o tempo extra para fornecer links para mais leitura que foi um nice bônus. Atividade da Conta / Histórico Localizada sob Minha Carteira e Minhas Contas são uma grande quantidade de subcategorias que fornecem detalhes sobre a negociação e a atividade geral da conta. Algumas dessas subcategorias incluem: Resumo do investimento (foto acima), retorno do investimento. Atividade da conta. Declarações. Confirmações comerciais. E os deslizamentos de imposto. Quando a Questrade fez mudanças significativas em sua interface de usuário em 2011, elas, de fato, transferiram toda a história da atividade de negociação para myQuestrade. Esta é uma mudança muito bem-vinda, porque antes de tudo o histórico de atividade de negociação foi fornecido por uma empresa de câmara de compensação de terceiros chamada Penson Financial Services e você teve que usar um site completamente diferente e outro conjunto de credenciais de login para obter acesso a essas informações. Felizmente esses dias são longos e agora você pode obter uma lista de todos os seus investimentos (ações, fundos, títulos, etc), saldos de caixa e posições atuais (em CAD e USD), capital total, poder de compra e mais tudo dentro de um localização. Histórico de negociação é mantida por 36 meses enquanto eStatements, gerado mensalmente, são armazenados por 7 anos. As folhas de imposto (por exemplo T3, T5, T5008) também estão disponíveis eletronicamente para cada ano. Declarações de Confirmações de Comércio Atividade de Conta Para os membros de longa data da Questrade que realizam atividades de negociação antes de 4 de fevereiro de 2011, você precisará visitar o site antigo da Penson. Você também precisará conhecer suas antigas contas de 6 caracteres da Questrade porque o site Penson não sabe nada sobre as representações de conta de 10 caracteres existentes. Aqui está uma rápida olhada no que o site de atividade de comércio Penson parece. Como acima mencionado, este site da Penson é relevante apenas para os membros da Questrade que desejam acessar a atividade de negociação arquivada antes de fevereiro de 2011. Todos os novos membros podem ignorar o que eu acabei de dizer e pule para o próximo parágrafo. Mas para aqueles interessados na história de Questrade8217s cronológica 8212 como observado e visualmente visto acima 8212 atividade comercial foi terceirizada e, como tal, a primeira diferença notável foi que a web UI foi completamente diferente e muito para trás nos tempos. Na época, ainda era muito surpreendente que, com o conjunto de habilidades e desejo de Questrade para oferecer uma experiência de UI limpa e amigável em seu domínio web principal que eles didn8217t sentem necessário pony até o dinheiro para internamente essas atividades conta, nem Teve a motivação para solicitar APIs de serviço da Web da Penson dando-lhes a rédea livre à pele sobre a experiência original de Penson. Embora os detalhes realizados dentro Penson foram extensas era confuso e confuso. O comércio e saldar saldos de data levou 24 horas para ser refletido na história o mesmo era verdade com poder de compra que atualizou uma vez, no início de cada dia. A maior parte do que foi encontrado neste antigo site Penson agora está integrado nas plataformas de negociação Questrade, discutido mais tarde. As contas de margem da Questrade (para ações e opções de negociação de opções) são constituídas por duas sub-contas 8212 uma para os fundos canadenses, a outra para os fundos norte-americanos. Isso é muito conveniente, pois reduz as taxas de conversão desnecessárias ao negociar instrumentos nos EUA. Assim, as transações sobre o capital dos EUA permanecem como USD ao contrário da maioria das outras corretoras que irão realizar conversões de volta ao CAD imediatamente. Por exemplo, com a Questrade, coisas como dividendos norte-americanos provenientes de ações negociadas nos EUA permanecerão como USD e serão automaticamente depositadas em sua subconta dos EUA. Os fundos podem ser movidos entre sub-contas usando myQuestrade8217s recurso de fundos de câmbio, mas apenas tomar nota que isso irá envolver uma conversão com base na taxa spot no fechamento do mercado em Toronto mais uma taxa spread (1,99 para margem e contas registradas se total O patrimônio líquido excede 100K este cai para 1,70 para margem e 1,00 para registrado). Uma melhor abordagem para a conversão entre USD / CAD, no entanto, seria usar a técnica Gambit Norbert8217s porque ele praticamente elimina as taxas de câmbio (envolve o uso de tickers DLR. TO, DLR. U.TO e diário sobre suas explorações para um ou o de outros). Questrade altamente encoraja a visualização / download / impressão de declarações do mês anterior (como arquivos pdf) disponibilizadas no myQuestrade para toda a atividade da conta, sem nenhum custo. No entanto, para aqueles que ainda insistem em declarações em papel, eles podem fazê-lo em um 20 / declaração forte que só pode ser solicitada entrando em contato diretamente por telefone ou através de Live Help. E, como uma nota acessível, a comunicação com os acionistas muitas vezes é enviada por correio normal, no entanto, agora há uma nova maneira de mudar isso permitindo que você receba toda a correspondência do investidor eletronicamente. Visite o site InvestorDelivery8217s para obter mais detalhes. Plataformas de negociação E assim começa uma nova era em plataformas de negociação para Questrade. Por enquanto podemos nos lembrar Questrade tinha sido chugging juntamente com suas plataformas capazes, mas envelhecimento, QuestraderWEB, QuestraderELITE e QuestraderPRO. Embora QuestraderWEB tivesse sido renovado consideravelmente todos os três estiveram no selvagem para bem sobre 10 anos. Todos eles executaram muito bem em seu próprio direito, mas não tinha mantido com os tempos como era evidente com as ofertas em outras corretoras de desconto casas. Questrade marcou um novo capítulo com a introdução do Questrade IQ suite. A Questrade vem fazendo muito trabalho nos bastidores para renovar sua experiência comercial com investidores. Quando eles lançaram um layout totalmente novo para myQuestrade um couldn8217t ajudar mas cabeça zero e pergunto por que suas plataformas de negociação nunca recebeu o mesmo tratamento. Bem, a resposta pode ser mais clara: eles estavam sendo atualizados, bem como apenas levaram um tempo. A epifania estava percebendo que ter três plataformas de negociação de desktop separado era confuso e assim eles optaram por aposentar todos os três em favor de uma plataforma de negociação única e mais moderna conhecida como Questrade IQ. Questrade IQ é uma suíte composta de três sabores: Questrade IQ Web. Uma plataforma de negociação totalmente funcional baseada na web (para Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 22, Firefox 13, Safari 5.1.2 para usuários de Mac) Questrade IQ Edge. Uma plataforma de negociação simplificada baseada em desktop (para Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10) e Questrade IQ Mobile. Seu primeiro participante móvel no campo da negociação (para iPhone / iPod Touch iOS 6 e Android OS 4.1). Há uma outra plataforma de negociação oferecida pela Questrade, não faz parte desta suíte, mas muito totalmente funcional. Ele é integrado ao myQuestrade e é encontrado quando você entra em sua conta (você já pode configurá-lo como sua base). É simplesmente chamado de Trading com Questrade e está sempre visível como um link clicável, rotulado como 8220Trading8221, na barra de navegação superior. É uma plataforma web não-instalada projetada para tablets, netbooks e outros sistemas / dispositivos (por exemplo, Linux 8211 Ubuntu 13, Fedora 20) que podem não ter capacidade (ou acesso) aos requisitos mínimos especificados para o conjunto IQ. Em outras palavras, é a plataforma de negociação alternativa para todos os outros que doesn8217t muito se encaixam nas outras categorias. Esta coleção inteira é gratuita para todos os membros e inclui cotação instantânea ao vivo canadense / EUA. Streaming de dados de nível 1, ferramentas de pesquisa para análise fundamental e técnica, um pacote de gráficos e muito mais. Às vezes, os dados do mercado podem ser atrasados (até 15 minutos) e, quando isso acontece, um bonito ícone de relógio aparece na tela para informá-lo do deslocamento. E, embora seja disponibilizada gratuitamente, essas plataformas podem ser atualizadas para incluir um dos três pacotes de dados ou adicionar feeds agrave la carte. Questrade IQ Web Questrade IQ O Questrade IQ Mobile O Questrade IQ Web faz uso do complemento multimídia Silverlight do Microsoft8217s. Silverlight é Microsoft8217s resposta ao Adobe Flash. O Flash é, de longe, o mais popular dos dois add-ons do navegador, mas a Questrade evitou usá-lo ao desenvolver o IQ Web. Por que você pergunta Porque Flash foi amplamente criticado por seus intermináveis problemas de segurança e desempenho, e por isso, devido a preocupações de segurança usando o Flash por seus comerciantes, e para melhor fornecer uma experiência mais fluida Silverlight foi selecionado em seu lugar. E foi certamente uma excelente escolha porque a sua capacidade de resposta dentro dos quatro navegadores mais populares é significativamente mais rápida do que se tivesse sido feita usando o Flash (o uso da CPU também é mantido no mínimo). Se você não tiver o Silverlight instalado, você será solicitado a fazê-lo quando tentar usar essa plataforma de negociação on-line pela primeira vez. Em termos de recursos e funcionalidade, Questrade IQ Web é uma excelente fusão de poder e usabilidade. Ele introduz o conceito de Gadgets em seu léxico de plataforma. Um gadget é um arranjado (arrastar-soltar, snap-to, resizable), user-customized janela de uma visão em seus detalhes de comércio / mercado. Os gadgets IQ incluem: Atividade (um visualizador de logs), Balanços, Caixa de Entrada, Tempo e Vendas (atividade global atual de uma ação), Cotações de Nível 1, Cotações de Nível 2 (se você paga por esta adição) , E Assista a Lista. Ao contrário de seu primo IQ Edge, Questrade IQ Web pode mudar seu tema para ser Dark (padrão) ou Light. Existem dois layouts disponíveis para o IQ Web: Standard e Advanced. O layout padrão é Avançado. A diferença entre os dois é que o padrão não permite que os gadgets além das balanças e as citações do nível 1 (localizadas na barra lateral direita) não sejam organizáveis nem personalizáveis e você não pode ajustar a rota nem a sub-rota para seus pedidos. Devido a essas limitações, recomendamos que você permaneça no layout padrão Avançado para ter acesso completo a todos os recursos do IQ Web8217s. O layout padrão seria para aqueles que só querem fazer comércios rápidos e simples, sem qualquer cuidado para outros detalhes que podem estar desordenando sua tela. Sessões de tempo limite após 30 minutos de inatividade. Quaisquer alterações personalizadas feitas no IQ Web só ficam salvas quando você efetuar o logout manualmente para que don8217t ache erroneamente que você pode fechar o navegador e assumir que suas alterações serão gravadas. Também observamos que todas e quaisquer alterações são perdidas permanentemente se você tentar alternar entre o layout padrão eo layout avançado. Portanto, tenha cuidado para escolher e ficar com um, ou correr o risco de ter que personalizar seus gadgets novamente. Layout 8211 IQ Web Gadgets 8211 IQ Web Ordem Entrada 8211 IQ Web Questrade IQ Edge é o grande paizinho desta suíte e, embora pareça muito semelhante ao IQ Web, ele carrega algumas diferenças interessantes. IQ Edge permite uma quantidade ilimitada de espaços de trabalho. Um espaço de trabalho é uma área de tela que permite abrir e personalizar um novo conjunto de gadgets ou janelas para uma finalidade específica que se adapte a um estilo de ambiente de negociação. Múltiplos espaços de trabalho facilmente navegáveis é um recurso valioso para os comerciantes ativos. A outra grande diferença entre IQ Edge e IQ Web é que a IQ Edge oferece uma placa mais avançada de opções para entradas de pedidos: ordens condicionais (por exemplo, ordens de disparo em um momento específico, preço ou volume automaticamente), ordens de suporte, alertas mais extensos, Várias janelas de entrada de pedidos, ea capacidade de ordem anonimamente. Há algumas diferenças sutis também. IQ Edge permite a customização extensiva de gadgets que os leva muito além do que é possível no IQ Web. No entanto, a maioria desses recursos de personalização são visuais (por exemplo, float, pin, arrastar, soltar, redimensionar, colorir, piscar texto) depende do gadget. Curiosamente, os gadgets don8217t têm um recurso de snap-to no IQ Edge e assim eles não se organizam automaticamente quando a janela principal do aplicativo é redimensionada. Foi um pouco inconveniente, mas não um grande negócio, porque a maioria das pessoas apenas posição seus gadgets em um determinado local e manter a janela do aplicativo em um tamanho definido. Curiosamente, as personalizações de gadgets que você faz no IQ Edge não são transferidas para o IQ Web e vice-versa. No entanto, símbolos de ticker e dados relacionados dentro de gadgets (por exemplo, alertas) são mantidos corretamente e fazem transferência entre os ambientes da web / desktop. IQ Edge também carrega apenas o tema 8220Dark8221 (lembre-se de que a Web IQ tem um tema 8220Dark8221 e 8220Light8221). Um fascínio adicional de IQ Edge é que dá a um comerciante a sensação de conforto sabendo que sua atividade de trading plataforma não será atrasada ou experiência soluços como poderia ser o caso se usando um navegador web. IQ Edge foi escrito a partir do zero usando o código C otimizado e implantado para processadores Intel / AMD garantindo a mais rápida das respostas para o mais intransigente dos comerciantes ativos. Infelizmente, no momento da redação deste artigo, não há uma versão de 64 bits do IQ Edge. Ele ainda será executado normalmente em sistemas de 64 bits que apenas won8217t ser executado tão eficientemente como poderia ser. Here8217s esperando que, num futuro próximo, uma versão 64-bit otimizada do IQ Edge será disponibilizada. Layout 8211 IQ Edge Gráficos 8211 IQ Edge Ordem Entrada 8211 IQ Edge E agora nós movemos nossa atenção para Questrade8217s outra plataforma. É apropriadamente chamado 8220Trading8221 e, embora não seja especificamente parte do IQ suite, no entanto, existe como uma plataforma de negociação muito bem integrada no ambiente myQuestrade. Ele serve como resposta de Questrade8217 para aqueles que, por uma razão ou outra, podem não ter acesso a (ou ser compatível com) uma de suas ofertas de QI. Esta seria a escolha perfeita para usuários de desktop Linux ou a crescente presença de portadoras de tablets. Como é uma experiência de resposta baseada em navegador HTML5 totalmente compatível, ao contrário dos seus irmãos IQ Web e IQ Mobile, ele não requer um download ou qualquer complemento de terceiros (ou seja, o plug-in do Microsoft Silverlight) para ser totalmente funcional. Como tal, esta plataforma também pode servir como uma opção alternativa para Windows e Mac OS X usuários que por razões de segurança podem preferir não usar Silverlight em tudo. Dar uma volta com esta plataforma foi uma experiência incrivelmente libertadora. Foi surpreendentemente rápido e responsivo em todos os navegadores que testamos. O uso de memória e CPU foi surpreendentemente pequeno, apesar da profundidade das opções, atividades e funcionalidades que ele tinha para oferecer. It8217s muito claro esta plataforma preludes Questrade8217s passos mais ousados de um dia dobrando IQ Mobile e IQ Web sob uma marca unificada 8212 uma experiência full-featured, exclusivamente web, para cada dispositivo e cada sistema a qualquer momento e em qualquer lugar um vislumbre no futuro nascente de Plataformas de negociação de ações. As diferenças notáveis entre esta plataforma e a família IQ incluem a incapacidade de definir rotas comerciais e sub-rotas, falta de opções de opção multi-leg, sem alertas, nem espaços de trabalho. Se você estiver procurando usar um ou mais desses recursos ausentes, então você deve usar o IQ em vez disso. Disposição 8211 Plataforma de Comércio Balança 8211 Plataforma de Comércio Actividade 8211 Plataforma Comercial Inquestionavelmente, esta nova plataforma de plataformas de negociação é um salto gigante na direcção certa para a Questrade. A coleção abrange tudo QuestraderWEB, QuestraderPRO, e QuestraderELITE (suas plataformas de comércio mais antigos) e alguns. E esta suíte faz isso da maneira mais intuitiva e rica em recursos. Tomando o passo ousado para aposentar suas plataformas mais antigas, suplantando-os com um ambiente de negociação de próxima geração ágil é um sinal de que Questrade se preocupa profundamente sobre a prestação da melhor experiência para o comerciante casual e exigente usuário ativo. Curiosamente, após uma investigação mais aprofundada que se estendeu por vários meses, descobrimos que novos lançamentos para esta suite é sempre consistente e rápido 8212 uma grande nova versão ocorre todos os meses 8212 trazendo com ele uma série de melhorias e correções de bugs, com base no feedback do usuário direto de sua linha Fórum de discussão da comunidade: The Exchange. Alguns outros recursos exclusivos que eu estou surpreso outras corretoras ainda não duplicado é, em primeiro lugar, as parcerias inteligentes Questrade tem com sites de terceiros (por exemplo, iShares ETFs) 8212 fornecendo um clique Buy Now botões através da web 8212 permitindo sobre a mosca rápido Comércios que whisk o comprador de volta para a plataforma de QI para completar o bilhete de encomenda pré-cheia. E em segundo lugar, um recurso chamado Margin Power (para contas auto-dirigidas) que, pelo seu nome, dá-lhe uma pista sobre o que ele faz. By linking your existing TFSA account to your margin account it increases your buying power within your margin account by leveraging the assets you already hold in your TFSA making it enormously convenient to enter new positions without requiring a transfer of new cash or selling existing securities. Both features are wonderfully handy The long requested single sign-on feature is now available for Questrade members. You now use one user ID and password to access the trading platform, myQuestrade, and the Exchange. This saves a tremendous amount of time because in the past Questrade had originally required at least three different sign-on credentials to access each of their trading landscapes, and so to no surprise this was a heavily requested feature. We welcome its addition. To get a better feel of what Questrade IQ has to offer here is a collection of video tutorials overviewing this trading platform8217s most common features. Videos 8211 IQ Web Videos 8211 IQ Edge Videos 8211 Trade Platform Now, to give you a better sense of who Questrade is and how much they8217ve improved here8217s a flash from the past with a historical look at their prior trading platforms. If you are not interested in knowing more about their past feel free to skip over this paragraph. Some time back, prior to Questrade IQ, Questrade offered a few other trading platforms for stocks and options: QuestraderWEB was their free trading platform, and QuestraderPRO and QuestraderELITE were desktop applications requiring a monthly subscription fee. For the remainder of this discussion I will only focus on QuestraderWEB. QuestraderWEB was a web-based application with a very pretty and intuitive user interface. It was Questrade8217s only free platform and required the Java plugin within your browser to function correctly. QuestraderWEB QuestraderPRO / ELITE A little note on exchange and ECN fees. These are the fees Questrade is forced to charge you when you make a transaction that removes liquidity from the market (i. e. buying at the ask or selling at the bid). Although these fees translate to mere pennies for most traders one can avoid paying them altogether by executing transactions as a limit (or stop) order at the bid/ask instead of as a market order request. For U. S. stocks you can also send orders to non-direct access ECN networks (LAMP, MNGD, or POST) to avoid these fees. Most people will sign-up for the standard marginal account which gives you access to borrow funds at an amount more than your current cash balance. This extended buying power ability is very useful and can come in handy when you need to jump on market opportunities. Assuming you8217ve bought on margin and haven8217t settled your stocks after 3 days of the purchase the margin interest rate is prime 2.5 which is inline with most brokerages. One of the selling points Questrade likes to bring up is that for mutual funds they will rebate the trailer fees. They call this their Mutual Fund Maximizer. Trailer fees are commissions by fund management companies paid to your brokerage house for being the retailer that sold you your fund(s). This commission is an ongoing source of revenue for your brokerage as long as you keep holding onto those fund(s). You don8217t see this fee because it is part of the MER of the fund. So Questrade is willing to rebate this fee back to you each quarter. But there8217s a catch. You need a minimum of 36,000 in mutual fund holdings to be eligible for this rebate. The reasoning is simple. There is a processing fee of 29.95/month so the rebates will start paying back if your mutual fund holdings is worth more than 36,000 (based on a 1 trailer fee). Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) Self-directed investment empowerment (aka DIY trading) is offered by virtually all discount brokerages and has been a popular preference by the general public due to the myriad of easy-to-use tools and support made available to an investor desiring to control every aspect of their interests. With this style of investing customers have always been able to sculpt their own investment strategy, define their portfolio, buy and sell securities, and more. However, there is another option. For those with very little time while continuing to carry big investment ambitions Questrade introduced Portfolio IQ, the alternative to self-directing investing. Really known as managed investing, Portfolio IQ takes away the stress of investment decision making and puts them in the hands of portfolio managers of their Questrade Wealth Management division. Who doesn8217t want to take it easy and watch their money grow towards financial independence with little effort It8217s a dream come true The difficult part with that dream is figuring out how exactly to do that. This is where Portfolio IQ comes to the rescue. Becoming Canada8217s first online wealth management service, Portfolio IQ debuted as a definitive market disrupter by making managed investing accessible to everyone. Traditionally, managed investing has been an exclusive club for the uber-rich but Questrade, keeping to its roots of bringing all things restrictive to the masses, decided to do away with convention. Opening a Portfolio IQ account is straight-forward and only requires 1. As an extra bonus, this review8217s Questrade offer code can also be used when opening this type of account. Once open you8217re taken through a simple-to-use point-and-click questionnaire to set up an investor biography that identifies your risk tolerance, existing financial circumstances, market knowledge, and investment ambitions all of which is used to better crystallize the best portfolio for you. What8217s also great is that if your goals change then you can return and adjust your bio to keep things in balance, which will automatically update your underlying portfolio model accordingly. All the portfolios deal exclusively in ETFs (composed of a mix of various sectors, markets, and countries) and come in 5 flavors: With the added benefit of taking full advantage of tax-loss harvesting and providing a last quarter management fee refund guarantee if not fully satisfied for any reason, Portfolio IQ is an extraordinary entrant into the managed investing arena and has that perfect resonating mix all investors, big and small, crave when they daydream of an unshackled financial tomorrow. IPO Centre Participating in initial public offerings (IPO), secondary issues (additional shares/bonds offered by a public company), and structured products has always been the holy grail for many investors since the incredible euphoric frenzy of the 1990s internet IPO boom. Historically, because first issues usually tick up on first day closings it8217s logically understandable why so many want in 8212 it8217s a quick way to make an easy buck However, due to the natural laws of supply and demand interest in these new issues almost always outstrip the quantity made available and therefore only insiders, well-connected bigwigs, and the very rich are usually the only ones who have access to them nepotism and cronyism at its undemocratic finest. For generations the general public has had little access to IPOs. There was a brief moment in time when Wit Capital, an internet startup of the 90s, briefly unlocked this secret world, but it was short-lived. Questrade became one of the new Canadian trailblazers to usher in a sledgehammer back into this world for the masses. The Questrade IPO Centre, showcasing mostly Canadian equity, fixed income, and structured products, list newly available issues and previous offerings (for historic analysis). Their respective facts, investor summary, terms, and preliminary prospectus are also readily accessible. For instant notification of newly announced IPOs and secondary issues clients are encouraged to subscribe to the IPO Bulletin. Independent testing revealed that notifications were indeed right away. The centre is reachable on the desktop/laptops. smartphones, and tablets. When you see an IPO or other new issue you like, it8217s a simple click, tap, or a trade desk call away to express interest. An expression of interest makes Questrade aware you are putting in a commitment to buy a number of shares. However, this does not guarantee you will actually get any or all of the shares you8217ve requested. If a client places an expression of interest on the website, the trade desk will contact the client to confirm the order within an hour (rare cases may take up to 24 hours). There is a 5,000 minimum requested amount for submitting an IPO order. Some companies going public may even ask for an amount over and above this, but the majority of the time it won8217t be above the 5,000 Questrade minimum. Once the order is confirmed Questrade passes along the interest to the offering8217s underwriter. Although not possible right now, soon clients will be able to submit their expression of interest through the trading platform to reduce wait time and eliminate the need for a Questrade representative call-back to confirm the order. Cancelling an interest request can be made within two business days (this may vary depending on the province) after receipt or deemed receipt of a prospectus and any amendment (found at the online centre). All IPO and secondary offering purchases are commission free. Processing time for orders can vary but usually it takes around 3 weeks from when the underwriters first launch the IPO and when the offering closes. For some secondary offerings and preferred treasury shares times can be shorter. Once allocations from the underwriter are received Questrade informs clients via email or phone. Allocations, however, may be distributed on a pro-rata basis if an IPO is oversubscribed (the number of shares requested by all interested parties is greater than what Questrade received), and so, as mentioned earlier your original interest amount may not necessarily materialize to what you actually get. For example if Questrade receives a 50 allocation on their total order amount, they would then allocate 50 to their client8217s original order. Although the IPO Centre mostly has Canadian offerings U. S. IPOs do show up from time-to-time as well. Due to Canadian securities regulations U. S. and other foreign-based companies must file their prospectus in each province individually in order to be sold to residents of that particular province. Because many companies in the United States may feel that doing an IPO in Canada could be an added expense (e. g. listing fees, legal fees, French language requirements) and that domestic demand in the U. S. is enough to satisfy how much capital they want to raise, it8217s only logical that most offerings will be Canadian by nature. Interestingly, many international mining/resource companies will choose to file a prospectus and raise money within Canada, and choose to be listed here as well. TSX has a very large mining focus in general. Registered accounts (e. g. RRSP, TFSA) are also eligible to hold the vast majority of IPOs and treasury offerings. However, some IPOs may not be eligible due to their company/offering structure and how widely held it is. The centre is a very welcome sight and seems well positioned to grow into something incredibly special. Sadly, no word yet if and when Questrade will be issuing their very own company IPO ) Security When making trades one of the primary concerns held by most people is security. Like banks, most discount brokerage companies deploy different protection strategies to secure your account such as randomizing security questions, displaying pre-selected image captchas that only the account holder would know, two-step verification, or even providing digital key devices which in conjunction with your secret password must be pressed to generate the final half of the login passcode each time. Questrade8217s security measures have improved dramatically over the years. For example, upon sign-up for a new account you are required to create a user ID, password, and set up a few security questions. User ID8217s are required to be 8-20 characters long while passwords must be at least 8 characters in length and include an uppercase, lowercase, and numerical (or symbolic) character. Although this seems like a standard approach across the web this is actually new and a big improvement for Questrade. They also now include extra verification steps such as when you attempt to log in to your account from an unrecognized system you are prompted with one of your security questions. Security advice is made available outlining how to protect yourself by taking precautionary steps like using anti-virus software to keep your computer clean. Interestingly, they have made the extra effort by partnering with Symantec, using Norton Anti-virus to continuously scan/monitor their own internal files, ensuring your investments and privacy on their end are secure. Questrade was also one of the few discount brokerage firms that were not affected by the Heart Bleed Bug 8212 they were protected all this time. Although they don8217t have security guarantees against intruders breaching accounts on your end, if there is fraudulent activity and it8217s proven to be due to the negligence of Questrade they are in a position to cover your loss. Also note that Questrade is a CIPF member and so Canadian investors are covered up to 1,000,000. Final Thoughts Reviews online are overwhelming negative towards Questrade. Prior to writing this review I decided to read many of these complaints so that I could be aware of and keep an eye out for any of these problems. I even took note on exact steps for some of these problems with hopes of recreating them. I had originally planned to share a collection of these complaints but seeing as how many of them might have already been resolved by Questrade I felt the company deserved another look before passing judgment. So after spending a number of days using their entire suite of online tools, making trades, and attempting to recreate customer complaints I can report back and say that I did not experience a single issue. My conclusion is that either Questrade had fixed several of these earlier problems or these complaints were from beginning traders who were not familiar with the platform nor company policies. Overall my experience with Questrade was a very pleasant one. Their 8220killer app8221, so to speak, is free (no commission charge) ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and that one can execute trades as low as 1cent per share (4.95 minimum) with no catch. It doesn8217t get any sweeter than that In rare instances I sometimes come across other brokerages offering promotionals at 4.95/trade but when you dig deeper into their fine print it almost unequivocally is for 8220big fish8221 traders who must spend upwards of 100,000/month in trading activity to be eligible for the 4.95 offer. Clearly not for the average consumer. Obviously this is not the case with Questrade. Questrade8217s low commission rate is so good it serves as an enticer to make more trades more often and not have to hesitate by attempting to time the market in hopes of covering commission costs. I am happy to see Questrade has made many brilliant enhancements over the years including, but not limited to, a unified single sign-on approach that provides a more consistent milieu. There are a few areas that can be improved such as remembering user settings across different trading platforms, but with such dramatic savings found among all their services it seems understandable that one can8217t always have everything. So I will give them a pass on that. Should you join Yes 8212 a resounding YES Questrade offers a remarkably rich tapestry of features well tailored for new investors and seasoned traders. For someone like me, as a casual trader, who has experienced headaches with other brokerage firms it8217s nice to finally find a good home at Questrade who doesn8217t play games nor charge exorbitant fees. Questrade fits my needs perfectly and helps unlock my potential as a growing investor. And at the end of the day isn8217t this what we really hope a respectable brokerage firm provides us Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade when signing up for a new account. ULTIMATE Questrade Review 2016: An In-Depth Look Written/Updated by Emma Li on Sunday, November 27 2016 Editor Rating: ( 90 ) 8211 User Rating: ( 95 ) 8211 W hen it comes to investing in 2016 the trading landscape is bathed and bursting at the seams with countless financial brokerage houses. Big names like BMO InvestorLine, RBC Direct Investing, TD Direct Investing, Interactive Brokers, Scotia iTrade, and at least a dozen more are available to chose from. Sadly, through deeper analysis one can8217t easily distinguish distinctive differences amongst them, especially within the circle of the big banks. Most brokerage firms primarily make their revenue through new and inventive concoctions of countless and ongoing fees pushed onto their account holders. Such fees include, but are not limited to, administrative fees, set-up fees, activity fees, inactivity fees, hidden fees, and after-hour fees. These added costs might be fine and dandy for the fractional percentage of high-volume traders simply because their sheer trade volumes and realized gains can potentially offset those expenses over time. However, for the rest of us those added and consistent fees are a reminder that over time 8220the house always wins8221. Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade. Beginning investors will usually look to their local bank to open their trading account primarily out of convenience since they already possess one or more personal chequing/savings accounts with that bank and so opening a trading account is a mere phone call away. The unfortunate disaster with that approach is that big banks, and for that matter, virtually every other brokerage firm in Canada will charge you an arm and a leg for any kind of activity you do (and don8217t do) in your trading account. Yes, even in this expansive internet age where everything is self-serve 24/7 convenience, commission schedules across the board are long, robust, and very much corporate bottom-line friendly. With standard rates at 29-49 per trade being commonplace one can8217t help but question if the entire industry is part of some price-fixing scheme. Where are the choices The Rise of Questrade . Founded in 1999 this company wanted to do and be something different. Seeing the growing discontent of active and inactive traders alike who were tired of watching their market gains washed away in a deluge of new brokerage fees by other companies Questrade began a process of streamlining the entire investment approach. And in so doing I think they8217ve done a pretty impression job. In the rest of this review I will explore Questrade and their collective offerings in terms of the good and the bad. First a little about me. I am not an aggressive highly active trader. Most times I will take the buy-and-hold approach as my tried-and-true investment style. And so when I buy into a company I do so for the long-term. However, at times I do get that itch and begin trading like a crazy person but this does not happen often. Questrade offers a well-crafted industry unique 8216democratic pricing8217 stock trading commission: 1cent per share with a minimum charge of 4.95/trade and a ceiling maximum commission charge of 9.95 8212 ideal for long-term investors. Active traders (or anyone at anytime) have the alternative option of 1cent per share (1cent minimum / 6.95 maximum), or a 4.95 flat stock commission charge 8212 ideal for high volume share trades. Options investing for these active users come with an attractively low 4.95 75cent per contract. And the process of enrolling into this alternative program simply involves subscribing to one of Questrade8217s several advanced market data plans. This should be glanced at again It is not a typo Questrade offers the cheapest trades in all of Canada. Their price point is so impressive that it actually encourages new and/or small investors to jump in and take part in the investment game while also enticing disgruntled active traders of other brokerage firms to transfer in (at no charge). They make it abundantly clear that they don8217t charge setup fees, annual fees, nor inactivity fees (more on this later) on any of their services which is a welcome change to the industry norm. However, for those looking for more of an actively managed portfolio touch there is a new specialty service they now offer at a nominal annual fee which will be discussed in-depth later in this review. There are a few other noteworthy perks provided by Questrade. The first is the ability to buy ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) funds at no commission charge 8212 they are free to buy With so many investors turning to ETFs these days due to their low MERs and diversified reach it is a wonderful breath of fresh air to be able to do so at no cost. Questrade may be one of the first discount brokers in Canada to do such a thing, and I applaud them. Secondly, Questrade offers IPOs (Initial Public Offering). For those not familiar with IPOs, these are simply the first sale of new issues by a private company to the public. Questrade regularly has access to a wide range of new offerings, making them available to clients. They offer several types of accounts: Margin Accounts (e. g. Individual, Informal Trust, Business) Registered (e. g. TFSA, RRSP, RESP) Forex (FX) and Contract For Difference (CFD) Trading Managed Investing And provides access to the following services: 1cent per share 8211 4.95/trade minimum / 9.95 maximum charge Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) Cost varies 8211 99.95/yr minimum 2,000 in assets or more New Account Sign-up The process of opening an account online is remarkably intuitive, painless, and very quick (2 minutes for your general account, access to practice platforms, and community discussion / 15 minutes total for opening trading accounts). You will need your social insurance number (SIN), bank account information, and employer details (or source of income if unemployed). And although they have an offline printout alternative I highly recommend their secure online process instead because it reduces the amount of write-in errors and legibility issues, and supports e-Signature for online personal verification (via your SIN). Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade. Sign-up Start Page Account Selection Agreements One of the first things you must do while signing up is to create a user ID (8-20 characters) and password (min. of 8 characters incl. 1 uppercase, 1 lowercase, and 1 numerical or symbol) for your new account. In earlier days Questrade had an automated process that generated and emailed this password, and along with your email address served as your primary login credentials. This old way became a security risk and so they thankfully changed it back in 2011 to what you see now. The benefit of creating your own user ID and password also makes it much more convenient to return to an incomplete application at a later time. Sessions time out after 30 minutes of inactivity giving you ample time to collect required documents and credentials, and review your inputted details. Questrade offers two collections of accounts: Self-directed and Managed Investing. If you want to have full control over your account(s) then self-directed is for you. For those who want a professionally managed approach handled by a real staff (Questrade Wealth Management division) behind the scenes that carefully considers your personal goals and risk tolerance to match, manage, monitor, and adjust for the best investments without your daily involvement then managed investing (known as Portfolio IQ under Questrade8217s lexicon) is the best option. However, unlike self-directed, Portfolio IQ does come at a price 8212 a 99/year minimum management fee. In my opinion self-directed is all one will ever need considering how making informed investment decisions is quite simple for even newcomers these days and to compound on this, self-directed accounts have no fees (outside the usual trade commission) associated with them unlike their managed investing cousins. I8217ll go in-depth on their managed investing offering in a later section. After signing up online (don8217t forget to use the Questrade offer code during sign up) you are able to immediately login to your new account and have a look around. However, to officially activate your account (to begin trading) an initial deposit is required 8212 self-directed: 1,000 for margin accounts, 1,000 USD for forex accounts (CAD deposits are auto-converted to USD), 5,000 to trade option spreads, 25,000 to write/sell uncovered options, and managed investing (Portfolio IQ) requires at least a 1 initial deposit. Once this initial minimum deposit has cleared Questrade emails you a confirmation message. For offline applications you will be contacted by a representative confirming trading can begin. It takes 1-3 business days from signing up for your account to begin trading. The longest part of the process is waiting for the funds to be received and processed by Questrade. Once everything is a go, maintaining a minimum equity balance of 250 is essential to keeping your active account in good standing. Questrade supports several methods to fund your account including EFT (from CAD bank accounts), wire transfers, cheques, pre-authorized deposits, money orders, drafts, stock certificates, broker-to-broker transfers, and from other existing Questrade accounts (under your name). It should be noted though that you cannot use the EFT method to send USD to your Questrade account. The reverse is possible where you can withdraw USD funds to a USD bank account (they require a void check or a pre-authorized deposit agreement form signed and stamped by the bank). To deposit USD you can set up a pre-authorized deposit agreement with Questrade which takes about 1-5 business days, or send a certified cheque/bank draft to their office, or wire transfer the USD funds directly to your account. Alternatively, you can also convert your existing CAD balance (within your account) to USD using the Exchange Funds tool (found under My Requests ) which can take up to 24 hours to process, or take advantage of Norbert8217s Gambit (successful conversions have been confirmed). Funding your margin (or other non-registered) account by either currency type will automatically be placed into a sub-account (more about sub-accounts later) of the same type (they do not perform automatic conversions 8212 you must execute the request on your own). Electronic withdrawals take roughly 3 business days to process and arrive into a bank account. An interesting related note is that Questrade continues to be the only brokerage in Canada to allow dual-currency (CAD and USD) to be held simultaneously inside registered accounts (i. e. RRSP, RESP, TFSA, LIRA, RIF, LIF) which in and of itself will save a tremendous amount of money from unnecessary conversion fees. Back in April of last year Questrade rolled out a subtle but important revision to its inactivity fee policy. It8217s actually not that bad when you peruse the details. If anything it8217s quite reasonable. As has been long known Questrade does not charge an inactivity fee, but this policy adjustment can potentially charge 24.95 (no tax) per calendar quarter. If, however, you make at least one commissionable trade per quarter (once every 3-months) you will not get charged any inactivity fee at all. If you are inactive for a quarter and do get charged this fee, but then go about making at least one trade in the following quarter you will receive up to 24.95 in commission-free trades. Charitable and forex accounts, individuals 25 years of age or younger, as well as any new account opened for only 6-months are exempt from this fee (you will not get charged for being inactive). Also, all clients of Questrade, and households having the same physical address, with combined equity assets of at least 5,000 are exempt. For most investors this change is trivial since their assets are almost always over 5,000, and so will never get charged this inactivity fee. As I pointed out earlier, I think this change is perfectly reasonable and still miles better than all other discount brokerage houses who not only charge an inactivity fee, with no exceptions, they do so more frequently (each month) and tack on countless hidden fees which Questrade does not. Member Login Your account8217s primary control panel is known as myQuestrade and, quite simply put, it is a beautiful experience with well thought out organization and visual appeal. Someone put a lot of love into this area 8212 providing a consistent fully immersive and responsive experience, accessible on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. This panel fully integrates trading and account management together very seamlessly giving immediate access to buy/sell securities, access research tools, make use of a full library of partner apps (and developer API), view your account activity, analyze balances and positions, manage your personal details, view statements, make fund transfers in/out of your accounts, upload/download your documents, exchange CAD/USD currency, take corporate action on shareholder communications, transfer positions, open additional accounts, retrieve tax slips, exercise options, and interact with mutual funds. myQuestrade Home Investment Summary Mutual Fund Centre Upon logging into your account for the first time you are asked to select a default home base. A home base is where you would like Questrade to directly place you each time you log in. You have a choice of either the trading platform or account management. Although it8217s a convenient time saver you can jump between each at any time via an always-visible nav button. Once you8217ve made your choice Questrade walks you through an interactive user guide on how to use the environment. Accounts 8217s consist of 10 numerical digits (e. g. 12345678-90). This is a big jump from their pre-2011 6-character alphanumeric size and as such some external banks have been reported to still impose an 8-character limit for payee accounts when you attempt to send money to Questrade. To get around this you only need to provide the 1st 8-digits of your Questrade account and the funds will still arrive successfully. If at anytime you need help on practically anything you can always use the online Questrade Live Help session (usually accessible from the top or right-hand side of Questrade8217s site) 8212 operational on weekdays (excluding holidays) from 8:00am 8211 8:00pm EST. I have found that using Live Help is much quicker than calling their offices. And after speaking to several of their online representatives (those who deal with potential new accounts and others who deal with existing accounts) I found them to be very well-informed, professional, and quick in their responses. They all also took the extra time to provide web links for further reading which was a nice bonus. Account Activity / History Located under My Portfolio and My Accounts are a slew of subcategories providing details about trading and general account activity. Some of these subcategories include: Investment Summary (pictured above), Investment Return . Account Activity . Statements . Trade Confirmations . and Tax Slips . When Questrade made significant changes to its UI back in 2011 they in effect moved all trading activity history into myQuestrade. This is a very welcome change because prior to this all trading activity history was provided by a third-party clearinghouse company called Penson Financial Services and you had to use a completely different site and another set of login credentials to get access to this information. Thankfully those days are long over and you can now get a list of all your investments (stocks, funds, bonds, etc), current cash balances and positions (in CAD and USD), total equity, buying power, and more all within one location. Trading history is maintained for 36 months while eStatements, generated monthly, are stored for 7 years. Tax slips (e. g. T3, T5, T5008) are also available electronically for each year. Trade Confirmations Statements Account Activity For existing long-time Questrade members carrying trading activity prior to February 4th, 2011 you will need to visit the old Penson site. You will also need to know your old 6-character Questrade account (s) because the Penson site does not know anything about the existing 10-character account representations. Here is a quick peek at what the Penson trade activity site looks like. Trade Activity (up to Feb 2011) As stated above, this Penson site is only relevant to existing Questrade members who wish to access archived trading activity prior to February 2011. All new members can ignore what I just said and skip to the next paragraph. But for those interested in Questrade8217s chronological history 8212 as noted and visually seen above 8212 trade activity was outsourced and as such the first noticeable difference was that the web UI was completely different and very behind in the times. At the time it was still very surprising that with the skill set and desire by Questrade to offer a clean and friendly UI experience on their main web domain that they didn8217t feel it necessary to pony up the cash to in-house these account activities, nor had the motivation to request web-service APIs from Penson giving them free rein to skin over the original Penson experience. Although the details held within Penson were extensive it was cluttered and confusing. The trade and settle date balances took 24 hours to be reflected in history the same was true with buying power which updated once, at the start of each day. Most of what was found in this old Penson site is now integrated into Questrade Trading Platforms, discussed later. Questrade margin accounts (for stocks amp options trading) are comprised of two sub-accounts 8212 one for Canadian funds, the other for U. S. funds. This is very convenient since it reduces unnecessary conversion charges when trading U. S. instruments. So, transactions on U. S. equity stays as USD unlike most other brokerage firms which will perform conversions back to CAD right away. For example, with Questrade things like U. S. dividend income from U. S. traded stocks will remain as USD and automatically be deposited into your U. S. sub-account. Funds can be moved between sub-accounts using myQuestrade8217s Exchange Funds feature, but just take note that this will involve a conversion based on the spot rate at the close of market in Toronto plus a spread fee (1.99 for both margin and registered accounts if total equity exceeds 100K this drops to 1.70 for margin and 1.00 for registered). A better approach for converting between USD/CAD, however, would be to use the Norbert8217s Gambit technique because it virtually eliminates currency exchange fees (it involves using tickers DLR. TO, DLR. U.TO and journaling over your holdings to one or the other). Questrade highly encourages the viewing/downloading/printing of previous month statements (as pdf files) made available in myQuestrade for all account activity at no charge. However, for those who still insist on mailed paper statements, they can do so at a hefty 20/statement which can only be requested by contacting them directly by phone or through Live Help. And, as a handy note, shareholder communication is often times sent through normal mail, however, there is now a new way to change this allowing you to receive all investor correspondence electronically. Visit InvestorDelivery8217s website for more details. Trading Platforms And so begins a new era in trading platforms for Questrade. For as long as we can remember Questrade had been chugging along with their capable, but aging, platforms: QuestraderWEB, QuestraderELITE, and QuestraderPRO. Although QuestraderWEB had been renovated considerably all three had been in the wild for well over 10 years. They all performed quite well in their own right but had not kept up with the times as was evident with the offerings at other discount brokerage houses. Questrade marked a new chapter with the introduction of the Questrade IQ suite. Questrade has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to revamp their investor8217s trading experience. When they released a whole new layout for myQuestrade one couldn8217t help but head scratch and wonder why their trading platforms never received the same treatment. Well, the answer can8217t be clearer: they were being updated as well 8212 it just took them a while. The epiphany was realizing that having three separate desktop trading platforms was confusing and so they opted to retire all three in favor of a single, more modern trading platform known as Questrade IQ. Questrade IQ is a suite composed of three flavors: Questrade IQ Web . a fully functional web-based trading platform (for Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 22, Firefox 13, Safari 5.1.2 for Mac Users) Questrade IQ Edge . a streamlined desktop-based trading platform (for Windows 7/8.1/10) and Questrade IQ Mobile . their first mobile entrant in the field of trading (for iPhone/iPod Touch iOS 6, and Android OS 4.1). There is one other trading platform offered by Questrade, not part of this suite, but very much fully functional. It is integrated into myQuestrade and is found when you log into your account (you may have already even set it up as your home base). It is simply called Trading with Questrade and is always visible as a clickable link, labelled as 8220Trading8221, at the top nav bar. It is a non-install web platform designed for tablets, netbooks, and other systems/devices (e. g. Linux 8211 Ubuntu 13, Fedora 20) that may not have the capability (or access) to the specific minimum requirements outlined for the IQ suite. In other words, it is the fallback trading platform for everyone else that doesn8217t quite fit into the other categories. This entire collection is free for all members and includes snap quote live Canadian/U. S. streaming Level 1 data, research tools for fundamental and technical analysis, a charting package, and more. At times market data can be delayed (up to 15 minutes) and when this happens a cute clock icon appears on-screen to let you know of the streaming hang-up. And although it is made available for free, these platforms can be upgraded to include one of three data packages or add agrave la carte feeds. Questrade IQ Web Questrade IQ Edge Questrade IQ Mobile Questrade IQ Web makes use of Microsoft8217s Silverlight multimedia add-on. Silverlight is Microsoft8217s answer to Adobe Flash. Flash is by far the most popular of the two browser add-ons but Questrade steered clear of using it when developing IQ Web. Why you ask Because Flash has been widely criticized for its never-ending security and performance problems, and so, due to safety concerns using Flash by its traders, and to better provide a more fluid experience Silverlight was selected instead. And it was certainly an excellent choice because its responsiveness within the top four most popular browsers is significantly faster than if it were to have been done using Flash (CPU usage is also kept to a minimum). If you don8217t have Silverlight installed already you will be prompted to do so when you attempt to use this online trading platform for the first time. In terms of features and functionality, Questrade IQ Web is an excellent amalgamation of power and usability. It introduces the concept of Gadgets into its platform lexicon. A gadget is an arrangeable (drag-drop, snap-to, resizable), user-customized window of a view into your trading/market details. IQ gadgets include: Activity (a logs viewer), Balances, Inbox, Time and Sales (current global activity of a stock), Level 1 Quotes, Level 2 Quotes (if you paid for this addition), Quick Charts, Orders, Position Summary, and Watch List. Unlike its IQ Edge cousin, Questrade IQ Web can change its theme to be either Dark (default) or Light . There are two layouts available for IQ Web: Standard and Advanced . The default layout is Advanced. The difference between the two is that Standard does not permit any gadgets besides Balances and Level 1 Quotes (located on the right sidebar) windows are not arrangeable nor customizable and you cannot adjust the route nor sub-route for your orders. Because of these limitations we recommend you remain in the default Advanced layout to have full access to all of IQ Web8217s features. The Standard layout would be for those who just want to make quick and simple trades without any care for other details that might be cluttering their screen. Sessions timeout after 30 minutes of inactivity. Any custom changes you make in IQ Web only get saved when you manually log out so don8217t mistakenly think you can just close the browser and assume your changes will be recorded. We also noticed that any and all of your changes are lost permanently if you attempt to switch between the Standard layout and the Advanced layout. So be careful to pick and stick with one, or risk having to customize your gadgets again. Layout 8211 IQ Web Gadgets 8211 IQ Web Order Entry 8211 IQ Web Questrade IQ Edge is the big daddy of this suite and although it looks very similar to IQ Web it does carry some interesting differences. IQ Edge allows for an unlimited amount of workspaces. A workspace is a screen area allowing one to open and customize a new set of gadgets or windows for a particular purpose that suits a trading environment style. Multiple easily navigable workspaces is a valuable asset to active traders. The other big difference between IQ Edge and IQ Web is that IQ Edge offers a more advanced plate of options for order entries: conditional orders (e. g. trigger orders at a specific time, price, or volume automatically), bracket orders, more extensive alerts, multiple order entry windows, and the ability to order anonymously. There are a few subtle differences too. IQ Edge allows for extensive gadget customizing which takes them well beyond what is possible in IQ Web. However, most of these customizing features are visual (e. g. float, pin, drag-drop, resize, colourize, blink text) it depends on the gadget. Curiously, gadgets don8217t have a snap-to feature in IQ Edge and so they do not auto-arrange when the main application window resizes. It was a bit inconvenient but not a big deal because most people just position their gadgets at a particular spot and maintain the application window at a set size. Interestingly, any gadget customizations you make in IQ Edge does not transfer over to IQ Web, and vice versa. However, ticker symbols and related data inside gadgets (e. g. alerts) are properly maintained and do transfer over between web/desktop environments. IQ Edge also only carries the 8220Dark8221 theme (recall that IQ Web carries both a 8220Dark8221 and 8220Light8221 theme). One additional allure of IQ Edge is that it gives a trader the sense of comfort knowing their platform8217s trading activity will not be delayed or experience hiccups as might be the case if using a web browser. IQ Edge was written from the ground up using optimized C code and deployed for Intel/AMD processors ensuring the speediest of responses for the most diehard of active traders. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing there is no 64-bit version of IQ Edge. It will still run normally on 64-bit systems it just won8217t be running as efficiently as it could be. Here8217s hoping that in the near future an optimized 64-bit version of IQ Edge will be made available. Layout 8211 IQ Edge Charts 8211 IQ Edge Order Entry 8211 IQ Edge And now we move our attention towards Questrade8217s other platform. It is aptly named 8220Trading8221 and although it is not specifically part of the IQ suite it nevertheless exists as a very well integrated trading platform within the myQuestrade environment. It serves as Questrade8217s answer for those who, for one reason or another, may not have access to (or be compatible with) one of their IQ offerings. This would be the perfect choice for Linux desktop users or the ever growing presence of tablet carriers. Because it is a fully compliant HTML5 browser-based responsive experience, unlike its IQ Web and IQ Mobile siblings, it does not require a download or any third-party add-on (i. e. Microsoft Silverlight plugin) to be fully functional. As such this platform can also serve as an alternative option for Windows and Mac OS X users who for security reasons may prefer not to use Silverlight at all. Taking a spin with this platform was an incredibly liberating experience. It was surprisingly lightning fast and responsive in every web browser we tested. Memory and CPU footprint usage was astonishingly small despite the depth of options, activity, and functionality it had to offer. It8217s very clear this platform preludes Questrade8217s bolder steps of one day folding IQ Mobile and IQ Web under one unified branding 8212 a full-featured, exclusively web-based, experience for every device and every system anytime, anywhere a glimpse into the nascent future of stock trading platforms. Notable differences between this platform and the IQ family include the inability to set trading routes and sub-routes, lack of multi-leg option orders, no alerts, nor workspaces. If you are looking to use one or more of those missing features then you must use IQ instead. Layout 8211 Trade Platform Balances 8211 Trade Platform Activity 8211 Trade Platform Unquestionably, this new trading platform suite is a giant leap in the right direction for Questrade. The collection encompasses everything QuestraderWEB, QuestraderPRO, and QuestraderELITE (their now-defunct older trading platforms) had and some. And this suite does so in the most intuitive, feature-rich way. By taking the bold step to retire their older platforms by supplanting them with an agile next-generation trading environment is a sign that Questrade cares deeply about providing the best experience for the casual trader and demanding active user. Interestingly, upon further investigation that spanned several months we found that new releases for this suite is always consistent and swift 8212 a major new release occurs every month 8212 bringing with it a slew of enhancements and bug fixes, based on direct user feedback of their online community discussion forum: The Exchange . A few other unique features which I am surprised other brokerages have not yet duplicated is, firstly, the clever partnerships Questrade has with third party websites (e. g. iShares ETFs) 8212 providing one-click Buy Now buttons across the web 8212 permitting on the fly quick trades that whisk the buyer back into the IQ platform to complete the pre-filled order ticket. And secondly, a feature called Margin Power (for self-directed accounts) which, by its name, gives you a clue on at what it does. By linking your existing TFSA account to your margin account it increases your buying power within your margin account by leveraging the assets you already hold in your TFSA making it enormously convenient to enter new positions without requiring a transfer of new cash or selling existing securities. Both features are wonderfully handy The long requested single sign-on feature is now available for Questrade members. You now use one user ID and password to access the trading platform, myQuestrade, and the Exchange. This saves a tremendous amount of time because in the past Questrade had originally required at least three different sign-on credentials to access each of their trading landscapes, and so to no surprise this was a heavily requested feature. We welcome its addition. To get a better feel of what Questrade IQ has to offer here is a collection of video tutorials overviewing this trading platform8217s most common features. Videos 8211 IQ Web Videos 8211 IQ Edge Videos 8211 Trade Platform Now, to give you a better sense of who Questrade is and how much they8217ve improved here8217s a flash from the past with a historical look at their prior trading platforms. If you are not interested in knowing more about their past feel free to skip over this paragraph. Some time back, prior to Questrade IQ, Questrade offered a few other trading platforms for stocks and options: QuestraderWEB was their free trading platform, and QuestraderPRO and QuestraderELITE were desktop applications requiring a monthly subscription fee. For the remainder of this discussion I will only focus on QuestraderWEB. QuestraderWEB was a web-based application with a very pretty and intuitive user interface. It was Questrade8217s only free platform and required the Java plugin within your browser to function correctly. QuestraderWEB QuestraderPRO / ELITE A little note on exchange and ECN fees. These are the fees Questrade is forced to charge you when you make a transaction that removes liquidity from the market (i. e. buying at the ask or selling at the bid). Although these fees translate to mere pennies for most traders one can avoid paying them altogether by executing transactions as a limit (or stop) order at the bid/ask instead of as a market order request. For U. S. stocks you can also send orders to non-direct access ECN networks (LAMP, MNGD, or POST) to avoid these fees. Most people will sign-up for the standard marginal account which gives you access to borrow funds at an amount more than your current cash balance. This extended buying power ability is very useful and can come in handy when you need to jump on market opportunities. Assuming you8217ve bought on margin and haven8217t settled your stocks after 3 days of the purchase the margin interest rate is prime 2.5 which is inline with most brokerages. One of the selling points Questrade likes to bring up is that for mutual funds they will rebate the trailer fees. They call this their Mutual Fund Maximizer. Trailer fees are commissions by fund management companies paid to your brokerage house for being the retailer that sold you your fund(s). This commission is an ongoing source of revenue for your brokerage as long as you keep holding onto those fund(s). You don8217t see this fee because it is part of the MER of the fund. So Questrade is willing to rebate this fee back to you each quarter. But there8217s a catch. You need a minimum of 36,000 in mutual fund holdings to be eligible for this rebate. The reasoning is simple. There is a processing fee of 29.95/month so the rebates will start paying back if your mutual fund holdings is worth more than 36,000 (based on a 1 trailer fee). Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) Self-directed investment empowerment (aka DIY trading) is offered by virtually all discount brokerages and has been a popular preference by the general public due to the myriad of easy-to-use tools and support made available to an investor desiring to control every aspect of their interests. With this style of investing customers have always been able to sculpt their own investment strategy, define their portfolio, buy and sell securities, and more. However, there is another option. For those with very little time while continuing to carry big investment ambitions Questrade introduced Portfolio IQ, the alternative to self-directing investing. Really known as managed investing, Portfolio IQ takes away the stress of investment decision making and puts them in the hands of portfolio managers of their Questrade Wealth Management division. Who doesn8217t want to take it easy and watch their money grow towards financial independence with little effort It8217s a dream come true The difficult part with that dream is figuring out how exactly to do that. This is where Portfolio IQ comes to the rescue. Becoming Canada8217s first online wealth management service, Portfolio IQ debuted as a definitive market disrupter by making managed investing accessible to everyone. Traditionally, managed investing has been an exclusive club for the uber-rich but Questrade, keeping to its roots of bringing all things restrictive to the masses, decided to do away with convention. Opening a Portfolio IQ account is straight-forward and only requires 1. As an extra bonus, this review8217s Questrade offer code can also be used when opening this type of account. Once open you8217re taken through a simple-to-use point-and-click questionnaire to set up an investor biography that identifies your risk tolerance, existing financial circumstances, market knowledge, and investment ambitions all of which is used to better crystallize the best portfolio for you. What8217s also great is that if your goals change then you can return and adjust your bio to keep things in balance, which will automatically update your underlying portfolio model accordingly. All the portfolios deal exclusively in ETFs (composed of a mix of various sectors, markets, and countries) and come in 5 flavors: With the added benefit of taking full advantage of tax-loss harvesting and providing a last quarter management fee refund guarantee if not fully satisfied for any reason, Portfolio IQ is an extraordinary entrant into the managed investing arena and has that perfect resonating mix all investors, big and small, crave when they daydream of an unshackled financial tomorrow. IPO Centre Participating in initial public offerings (IPO), secondary issues (additional shares/bonds offered by a public company), and structured products has always been the holy grail for many investors since the incredible euphoric frenzy of the 1990s internet IPO boom. Historically, because first issues usually tick up on first day closings it8217s logically understandable why so many want in 8212 it8217s a quick way to make an easy buck However, due to the natural laws of supply and demand interest in these new issues almost always outstrip the quantity made available and therefore only insiders, well-connected bigwigs, and the very rich are usually the only ones who have access to them nepotism and cronyism at its undemocratic finest. For generations the general public has had little access to IPOs. There was a brief moment in time when Wit Capital, an internet startup of the 90s, briefly unlocked this secret world, but it was short-lived. Questrade became one of the new Canadian trailblazers to usher in a sledgehammer back into this world for the masses. The Questrade IPO Centre, showcasing mostly Canadian equity, fixed income, and structured products, list newly available issues and previous offerings (for historic analysis). Their respective facts, investor summary, terms, and preliminary prospectus are also readily accessible. For instant notification of newly announced IPOs and secondary issues clients are encouraged to subscribe to the IPO Bulletin. Independent testing revealed that notifications were indeed right away. The centre is reachable on the desktop/laptops. smartphones, and tablets. When you see an IPO or other new issue you like, it8217s a simple click, tap, or a trade desk call away to express interest. An expression of interest makes Questrade aware you are putting in a commitment to buy a number of shares. However, this does not guarantee you will actually get any or all of the shares you8217ve requested. If a client places an expression of interest on the website, the trade desk will contact the client to confirm the order within an hour (rare cases may take up to 24 hours). There is a 5,000 minimum requested amount for submitting an IPO order. Some companies going public may even ask for an amount over and above this, but the majority of the time it won8217t be above the 5,000 Questrade minimum. Once the order is confirmed Questrade passes along the interest to the offering8217s underwriter. Although not possible right now, soon clients will be able to submit their expression of interest through the trading platform to reduce wait time and eliminate the need for a Questrade representative call-back to confirm the order. Cancelling an interest request can be made within two business days (this may vary depending on the province) after receipt or deemed receipt of a prospectus and any amendment (found at the online centre). All IPO and secondary offering purchases are commission free. Processing time for orders can vary but usually it takes around 3 weeks from when the underwriters first launch the IPO and when the offering closes. For some secondary offerings and preferred treasury shares times can be shorter. Once allocations from the underwriter are received Questrade informs clients via email or phone. Allocations, however, may be distributed on a pro-rata basis if an IPO is oversubscribed (the number of shares requested by all interested parties is greater than what Questrade received), and so, as mentioned earlier your original interest amount may not necessarily materialize to what you actually get. For example if Questrade receives a 50 allocation on their total order amount, they would then allocate 50 to their client8217s original order. Although the IPO Centre mostly has Canadian offerings U. S. IPOs do show up from time-to-time as well. Due to Canadian securities regulations U. S. and other foreign-based companies must file their prospectus in each province individually in order to be sold to residents of that particular province. Because many companies in the United States may feel that doing an IPO in Canada could be an added expense (e. g. listing fees, legal fees, French language requirements) and that domestic demand in the U. S. is enough to satisfy how much capital they want to raise, it8217s only logical that most offerings will be Canadian by nature. Interestingly, many international mining/resource companies will choose to file a prospectus and raise money within Canada, and choose to be listed here as well. TSX has a very large mining focus in general. Registered accounts (e. g. RRSP, TFSA) are also eligible to hold the vast majority of IPOs and treasury offerings. However, some IPOs may not be eligible due to their company/offering structure and how widely held it is. The centre is a very welcome sight and seems well positioned to grow into something incredibly special. Sadly, no word yet if and when Questrade will be issuing their very own company IPO ) Security When making trades one of the primary concerns held by most people is security. Like banks, most discount brokerage companies deploy different protection strategies to secure your account such as randomizing security questions, displaying pre-selected image captchas that only the account holder would know, two-step verification, or even providing digital key devices which in conjunction with your secret password must be pressed to generate the final half of the login passcode each time. Questrade8217s security measures have improved dramatically over the years. For example, upon sign-up for a new account you are required to create a user ID, password, and set up a few security questions. User ID8217s are required to be 8-20 characters long while passwords must be at least 8 characters in length and include an uppercase, lowercase, and numerical (or symbolic) character. Although this seems like a standard approach across the web this is actually new and a big improvement for Questrade. They also now include extra verification steps such as when you attempt to log in to your account from an unrecognized system you are prompted with one of your security questions. Security advice is made available outlining how to protect yourself by taking precautionary steps like using anti-virus software to keep your computer clean. Interestingly, they have made the extra effort by partnering with Symantec, using Norton Anti-virus to continuously scan/monitor their own internal files, ensuring your investments and privacy on their end are secure. Questrade was also one of the few discount brokerage firms that were not affected by the Heart Bleed Bug 8212 they were protected all this time. Although they don8217t have security guarantees against intruders breaching accounts on your end, if there is fraudulent activity and it8217s proven to be due to the negligence of Questrade they are in a position to cover your loss. Also note that Questrade is a CIPF member and so Canadian investors are covered up to 1,000,000. Final Thoughts Reviews online are overwhelming negative towards Questrade. Prior to writing this review I decided to read many of these complaints so that I could be aware of and keep an eye out for any of these problems. I even took note on exact steps for some of these problems with hopes of recreating them. I had originally planned to share a collection of these complaints but seeing as how many of them might have already been resolved by Questrade I felt the company deserved another look before passing judgment. So after spending a number of days using their entire suite of online tools, making trades, and attempting to recreate customer complaints I can report back and say that I did not experience a single issue. My conclusion is that either Questrade had fixed several of these earlier problems or these complaints were from beginning traders who were not familiar with the platform nor company policies. Overall my experience with Questrade was a very pleasant one. Their 8220killer app8221, so to speak, is free (no commission charge) ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and that one can execute trades as low as 1cent per share (4.95 minimum) with no catch. It doesn8217t get any sweeter than that In rare instances I sometimes come across other brokerages offering promotionals at 4.95/trade but when you dig deeper into their fine print it almost unequivocally is for 8220big fish8221 traders who must spend upwards of 100,000/month in trading activity to be eligible for the 4.95 offer. Clearly not for the average consumer. Obviously this is not the case with Questrade. Questrade8217s low commission rate is so good it serves as an enticer to make more trades more often and not have to hesitate by attempting to time the market in hopes of covering commission costs. I am happy to see Questrade has made many brilliant enhancements over the years including, but not limited to, a unified single sign-on approach that provides a more consistent milieu. There are a few areas that can be improved such as remembering user settings across different trading platforms, but with such dramatic savings found among all their services it seems understandable that one can8217t always have everything. So I will give them a pass on that. Should you join Yes 8212 a resounding YES Questrade offers a remarkably rich tapestry of features well tailored for new investors and seasoned traders. For someone like me, as a casual trader, who has experienced headaches with other brokerage firms it8217s nice to finally find a good home at Questrade who doesn8217t play games nor charge exorbitant fees. Questrade fits my needs perfectly and helps unlock my potential as a growing investor. And at the end of the day isn8217t this what we really hope a respectable brokerage firm provides us Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade when signing up for a new account. ULTIMATE Questrade Review 2016: An In-Depth Look Written/Updated by Emma Li on Sunday, November 27 2016 Editor Rating: ( 90 ) 8211 User Rating: ( 95 ) 8211 W hen it comes to investing in 2016 the trading landscape is bathed and bursting at the seams with countless financial brokerage houses. Big names like BMO InvestorLine, RBC Direct Investing, TD Direct Investing, Interactive Brokers, Scotia iTrade, and at least a dozen more are available to chose from. Sadly, through deeper analysis one can8217t easily distinguish distinctive differences amongst them, especially within the circle of the big banks. Most brokerage firms primarily make their revenue through new and inventive concoctions of countless and ongoing fees pushed onto their account holders. Such fees include, but are not limited to, administrative fees, set-up fees, activity fees, inactivity fees, hidden fees, and after-hour fees. These added costs might be fine and dandy for the fractional percentage of high-volume traders simply because their sheer trade volumes and realized gains can potentially offset those expenses over time. However, for the rest of us those added and consistent fees are a reminder that over time 8220the house always wins8221. Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade. Beginning investors will usually look to their local bank to open their trading account primarily out of convenience since they already possess one or more personal chequing/savings accounts with that bank and so opening a trading account is a mere phone call away. The unfortunate disaster with that approach is that big banks, and for that matter, virtually every other brokerage firm in Canada will charge you an arm and a leg for any kind of activity you do (and don8217t do) in your trading account. Yes, even in this expansive internet age where everything is self-serve 24/7 convenience, commission schedules across the board are long, robust, and very much corporate bottom-line friendly. With standard rates at 29-49 per trade being commonplace one can8217t help but question if the entire industry is part of some price-fixing scheme. Where are the choices The Rise of Questrade . Founded in 1999 this company wanted to do and be something different. Seeing the growing discontent of active and inactive traders alike who were tired of watching their market gains washed away in a deluge of new brokerage fees by other companies Questrade began a process of streamlining the entire investment approach. And in so doing I think they8217ve done a pretty impression job. In the rest of this review I will explore Questrade and their collective offerings in terms of the good and the bad. First a little about me. I am not an aggressive highly active trader. Most times I will take the buy-and-hold approach as my tried-and-true investment style. And so when I buy into a company I do so for the long-term. However, at times I do get that itch and begin trading like a crazy person but this does not happen often. Questrade offers a well-crafted industry unique 8216democratic pricing8217 stock trading commission: 1cent per share with a minimum charge of 4.95/trade and a ceiling maximum commission charge of 9.95 8212 ideal for long-term investors. Active traders (or anyone at anytime) have the alternative option of 1cent per share (1cent minimum / 6.95 maximum), or a 4.95 flat stock commission charge 8212 ideal for high volume share trades. Options investing for these active users come with an attractively low 4.95 75cent per contract. And the process of enrolling into this alternative program simply involves subscribing to one of Questrade8217s several advanced market data plans. This should be glanced at again It is not a typo Questrade offers the cheapest trades in all of Canada. Their price point is so impressive that it actually encourages new and/or small investors to jump in and take part in the investment game while also enticing disgruntled active traders of other brokerage firms to transfer in (at no charge). They make it abundantly clear that they don8217t charge setup fees, annual fees, nor inactivity fees (more on this later) on any of their services which is a welcome change to the industry norm. However, for those looking for more of an actively managed portfolio touch there is a new specialty service they now offer at a nominal annual fee which will be discussed in-depth later in this review. There are a few other noteworthy perks provided by Questrade. The first is the ability to buy ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) funds at no commission charge 8212 they are free to buy With so many investors turning to ETFs these days due to their low MERs and diversified reach it is a wonderful breath of fresh air to be able to do so at no cost. Questrade may be one of the first discount brokers in Canada to do such a thing, and I applaud them. Secondly, Questrade offers IPOs (Initial Public Offering). For those not familiar with IPOs, these are simply the first sale of new issues by a private company to the public. Questrade regularly has access to a wide range of new offerings, making them available to clients. They offer several types of accounts: Margin Accounts (e. g. Individual, Informal Trust, Business) Registered (e. g. TFSA, RRSP, RESP) Forex (FX) and Contract For Difference (CFD) Trading Managed Investing And provides access to the following services: 1cent per share 8211 4.95/trade minimum / 9.95 maximum charge Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) Cost varies 8211 99.95/yr minimum 2,000 in assets or more New Account Sign-up The process of opening an account online is remarkably intuitive, painless, and very quick (2 minutes for your general account, access to practice platforms, and community discussion / 15 minutes total for opening trading accounts). You will need your social insurance number (SIN), bank account information, and employer details (or source of income if unemployed). And although they have an offline printout alternative I highly recommend their secure online process instead because it reduces the amount of write-in errors and legibility issues, and supports e-Signature for online personal verification (via your SIN). Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade. Sign-up Start Page Account Selection Agreements One of the first things you must do while signing up is to create a user ID (8-20 characters) and password (min. of 8 characters incl. 1 uppercase, 1 lowercase, and 1 numerical or symbol) for your new account. In earlier days Questrade had an automated process that generated and emailed this password, and along with your email address served as your primary login credentials. This old way became a security risk and so they thankfully changed it back in 2011 to what you see now. The benefit of creating your own user ID and password also makes it much more convenient to return to an incomplete application at a later time. Sessions time out after 30 minutes of inactivity giving you ample time to collect required documents and credentials, and review your inputted details. Questrade offers two collections of accounts: Self-directed and Managed Investing. If you want to have full control over your account(s) then self-directed is for you. For those who want a professionally managed approach handled by a real staff (Questrade Wealth Management division) behind the scenes that carefully considers your personal goals and risk tolerance to match, manage, monitor, and adjust for the best investments without your daily involvement then managed investing (known as Portfolio IQ under Questrade8217s lexicon) is the best option. However, unlike self-directed, Portfolio IQ does come at a price 8212 a 99/year minimum management fee. In my opinion self-directed is all one will ever need considering how making informed investment decisions is quite simple for even newcomers these days and to compound on this, self-directed accounts have no fees (outside the usual trade commission) associated with them unlike their managed investing cousins. I8217ll go in-depth on their managed investing offering in a later section. After signing up online (don8217t forget to use the Questrade offer code during sign up) you are able to immediately login to your new account and have a look around. However, to officially activate your account (to begin trading) an initial deposit is required 8212 self-directed: 1,000 for margin accounts, 1,000 USD for forex accounts (CAD deposits are auto-converted to USD), 5,000 to trade option spreads, 25,000 to write/sell uncovered options, and managed investing (Portfolio IQ) requires at least a 1 initial deposit. Once this initial minimum deposit has cleared Questrade emails you a confirmation message. For offline applications you will be contacted by a representative confirming trading can begin. It takes 1-3 business days from signing up for your account to begin trading. The longest part of the process is waiting for the funds to be received and processed by Questrade. Once everything is a go, maintaining a minimum equity balance of 250 is essential to keeping your active account in good standing. Questrade supports several methods to fund your account including EFT (from CAD bank accounts), wire transfers, cheques, pre-authorized deposits, money orders, drafts, stock certificates, broker-to-broker transfers, and from other existing Questrade accounts (under your name). It should be noted though that you cannot use the EFT method to send USD to your Questrade account. The reverse is possible where you can withdraw USD funds to a USD bank account (they require a void check or a pre-authorized deposit agreement form signed and stamped by the bank). To deposit USD you can set up a pre-authorized deposit agreement with Questrade which takes about 1-5 business days, or send a certified cheque/bank draft to their office, or wire transfer the USD funds directly to your account. Alternatively, you can also convert your existing CAD balance (within your account) to USD using the Exchange Funds tool (found under My Requests ) which can take up to 24 hours to process, or take advantage of Norbert8217s Gambit (successful conversions have been confirmed). Funding your margin (or other non-registered) account by either currency type will automatically be placed into a sub-account (more about sub-accounts later) of the same type (they do not perform automatic conversions 8212 you must execute the request on your own). Electronic withdrawals take roughly 3 business days to process and arrive into a bank account. An interesting related note is that Questrade continues to be the only brokerage in Canada to allow dual-currency (CAD and USD) to be held simultaneously inside registered accounts (i. e. RRSP, RESP, TFSA, LIRA, RIF, LIF) which in and of itself will save a tremendous amount of money from unnecessary conversion fees. Back in April of last year Questrade rolled out a subtle but important revision to its inactivity fee policy. It8217s actually not that bad when you peruse the details. If anything it8217s quite reasonable. As has been long known Questrade does not charge an inactivity fee, but this policy adjustment can potentially charge 24.95 (no tax) per calendar quarter. If, however, you make at least one commissionable trade per quarter (once every 3-months) you will not get charged any inactivity fee at all. If you are inactive for a quarter and do get charged this fee, but then go about making at least one trade in the following quarter you will receive up to 24.95 in commission-free trades. Charitable and forex accounts, individuals 25 years of age or younger, as well as any new account opened for only 6-months are exempt from this fee (you will not get charged for being inactive). Also, all clients of Questrade, and households having the same physical address, with combined equity assets of at least 5,000 are exempt. For most investors this change is trivial since their assets are almost always over 5,000, and so will never get charged this inactivity fee. As I pointed out earlier, I think this change is perfectly reasonable and still miles better than all other discount brokerage houses who not only charge an inactivity fee, with no exceptions, they do so more frequently (each month) and tack on countless hidden fees which Questrade does not. Member Login Your account8217s primary control panel is known as myQuestrade and, quite simply put, it is a beautiful experience with well thought out organization and visual appeal. Someone put a lot of love into this area 8212 providing a consistent fully immersive and responsive experience, accessible on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. This panel fully integrates trading and account management together very seamlessly giving immediate access to buy/sell securities, access research tools, make use of a full library of partner apps (and developer API), view your account activity, analyze balances and positions, manage your personal details, view statements, make fund transfers in/out of your accounts, upload/download your documents, exchange CAD/USD currency, take corporate action on shareholder communications, transfer positions, open additional accounts, retrieve tax slips, exercise options, and interact with mutual funds. myQuestrade Home Investment Summary Mutual Fund Centre Upon logging into your account for the first time you are asked to select a default home base. A home base is where you would like Questrade to directly place you each time you log in. You have a choice of either the trading platform or account management. Although it8217s a convenient time saver you can jump between each at any time via an always-visible nav button. Once you8217ve made your choice Questrade walks you through an interactive user guide on how to use the environment. Accounts 8217s consist of 10 numerical digits (e. g. 12345678-90). This is a big jump from their pre-2011 6-character alphanumeric size and as such some external banks have been reported to still impose an 8-character limit for payee accounts when you attempt to send money to Questrade. To get around this you only need to provide the 1st 8-digits of your Questrade account and the funds will still arrive successfully. If at anytime you need help on practically anything you can always use the online Questrade Live Help session (usually accessible from the top or right-hand side of Questrade8217s site) 8212 operational on weekdays (excluding holidays) from 8:00am 8211 8:00pm EST. I have found that using Live Help is much quicker than calling their offices. And after speaking to several of their online representatives (those who deal with potential new accounts and others who deal with existing accounts) I found them to be very well-informed, professional, and quick in their responses. They all also took the extra time to provide web links for further reading which was a nice bonus. Account Activity / History Located under My Portfolio and My Accounts are a slew of subcategories providing details about trading and general account activity. Some of these subcategories include: Investment Summary (pictured above), Investment Return . Account Activity . Statements . Trade Confirmations . and Tax Slips . When Questrade made significant changes to its UI back in 2011 they in effect moved all trading activity history into myQuestrade. This is a very welcome change because prior to this all trading activity history was provided by a third-party clearinghouse company called Penson Financial Services and you had to use a completely different site and another set of login credentials to get access to this information. Thankfully those days are long over and you can now get a list of all your investments (stocks, funds, bonds, etc), current cash balances and positions (in CAD and USD), total equity, buying power, and more all within one location. Trading history is maintained for 36 months while eStatements, generated monthly, are stored for 7 years. Tax slips (e. g. T3, T5, T5008) are also available electronically for each year. Trade Confirmations Statements Account Activity For existing long-time Questrade members carrying trading activity prior to February 4th, 2011 you will need to visit the old Penson site. You will also need to know your old 6-character Questrade account (s) because the Penson site does not know anything about the existing 10-character account representations. Here is a quick peek at what the Penson trade activity site looks like. Trade Activity (up to Feb 2011) As stated above, this Penson site is only relevant to existing Questrade members who wish to access archived trading activity prior to February 2011. All new members can ignore what I just said and skip to the next paragraph. But for those interested in Questrade8217s chronological history 8212 as noted and visually seen above 8212 trade activity was outsourced and as such the first noticeable difference was that the web UI was completely different and very behind in the times. At the time it was still very surprising that with the skill set and desire by Questrade to offer a clean and friendly UI experience on their main web domain that they didn8217t feel it necessary to pony up the cash to in-house these account activities, nor had the motivation to request web-service APIs from Penson giving them free rein to skin over the original Penson experience. Although the details held within Penson were extensive it was cluttered and confusing. The trade and settle date balances took 24 hours to be reflected in history the same was true with buying power which updated once, at the start of each day. Most of what was found in this old Penson site is now integrated into Questrade Trading Platforms, discussed later. Questrade margin accounts (for stocks amp options trading) are comprised of two sub-accounts 8212 one for Canadian funds, the other for U. S. funds. This is very convenient since it reduces unnecessary conversion charges when trading U. S. instruments. So, transactions on U. S. equity stays as USD unlike most other brokerage firms which will perform conversions back to CAD right away. For example, with Questrade things like U. S. dividend income from U. S. traded stocks will remain as USD and automatically be deposited into your U. S. sub-account. Funds can be moved between sub-accounts using myQuestrade8217s Exchange Funds feature, but just take note that this will involve a conversion based on the spot rate at the close of market in Toronto plus a spread fee (1.99 for both margin and registered accounts if total equity exceeds 100K this drops to 1.70 for margin and 1.00 for registered). A better approach for converting between USD/CAD, however, would be to use the Norbert8217s Gambit technique because it virtually eliminates currency exchange fees (it involves using tickers DLR. TO, DLR. U.TO and journaling over your holdings to one or the other). Questrade highly encourages the viewing/downloading/printing of previous month statements (as pdf files) made available in myQuestrade for all account activity at no charge. However, for those who still insist on mailed paper statements, they can do so at a hefty 20/statement which can only be requested by contacting them directly by phone or through Live Help. And, as a handy note, shareholder communication is often times sent through normal mail, however, there is now a new way to change this allowing you to receive all investor correspondence electronically. Visit InvestorDelivery8217s website for more details. Trading Platforms And so begins a new era in trading platforms for Questrade. For as long as we can remember Questrade had been chugging along with their capable, but aging, platforms: QuestraderWEB, QuestraderELITE, and QuestraderPRO. Although QuestraderWEB had been renovated considerably all three had been in the wild for well over 10 years. They all performed quite well in their own right but had not kept up with the times as was evident with the offerings at other discount brokerage houses. Questrade marked a new chapter with the introduction of the Questrade IQ suite. Questrade has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to revamp their investor8217s trading experience. When they released a whole new layout for myQuestrade one couldn8217t help but head scratch and wonder why their trading platforms never received the same treatment. Well, the answer can8217t be clearer: they were being updated as well 8212 it just took them a while. The epiphany was realizing that having three separate desktop trading platforms was confusing and so they opted to retire all three in favor of a single, more modern trading platform known as Questrade IQ. Questrade IQ is a suite composed of three flavors: Questrade IQ Web . a fully functional web-based trading platform (for Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 22, Firefox 13, Safari 5.1.2 for Mac Users) Questrade IQ Edge . a streamlined desktop-based trading platform (for Windows 7/8.1/10) and Questrade IQ Mobile . their first mobile entrant in the field of trading (for iPhone/iPod Touch iOS 6, and Android OS 4.1). There is one other trading platform offered by Questrade, not part of this suite, but very much fully functional. It is integrated into myQuestrade and is found when you log into your account (you may have already even set it up as your home base). It is simply called Trading with Questrade and is always visible as a clickable link, labelled as 8220Trading8221, at the top nav bar. It is a non-install web platform designed for tablets, netbooks, and other systems/devices (e. g. Linux 8211 Ubuntu 13, Fedora 20) that may not have the capability (or access) to the specific minimum requirements outlined for the IQ suite. In other words, it is the fallback trading platform for everyone else that doesn8217t quite fit into the other categories. This entire collection is free for all members and includes snap quote live Canadian/U. S. streaming Level 1 data, research tools for fundamental and technical analysis, a charting package, and more. At times market data can be delayed (up to 15 minutes) and when this happens a cute clock icon appears on-screen to let you know of the streaming hang-up. And although it is made available for free, these platforms can be upgraded to include one of three data packages or add agrave la carte feeds. Questrade IQ Web Questrade IQ Edge Questrade IQ Mobile Questrade IQ Web makes use of Microsoft8217s Silverlight multimedia add-on. Silverlight is Microsoft8217s answer to Adobe Flash. Flash is by far the most popular of the two browser add-ons but Questrade steered clear of using it when developing IQ Web. Why you ask Because Flash has been widely criticized for its never-ending security and performance problems, and so, due to safety concerns using Flash by its traders, and to better provide a more fluid experience Silverlight was selected instead. And it was certainly an excellent choice because its responsiveness within the top four most popular browsers is significantly faster than if it were to have been done using Flash (CPU usage is also kept to a minimum). If you don8217t have Silverlight installed already you will be prompted to do so when you attempt to use this online trading platform for the first time. In terms of features and functionality, Questrade IQ Web is an excellent amalgamation of power and usability. It introduces the concept of Gadgets into its platform lexicon. A gadget is an arrangeable (drag-drop, snap-to, resizable), user-customized window of a view into your trading/market details. IQ gadgets include: Activity (a logs viewer), Balances, Inbox, Time and Sales (current global activity of a stock), Level 1 Quotes, Level 2 Quotes (if you paid for this addition), Quick Charts, Orders, Position Summary, and Watch List. Unlike its IQ Edge cousin, Questrade IQ Web can change its theme to be either Dark (default) or Light . There are two layouts available for IQ Web: Standard and Advanced . The default layout is Advanced. The difference between the two is that Standard does not permit any gadgets besides Balances and Level 1 Quotes (located on the right sidebar) windows are not arrangeable nor customizable and you cannot adjust the route nor sub-route for your orders. Because of these limitations we recommend you remain in the default Advanced layout to have full access to all of IQ Web8217s features. The Standard layout would be for those who just want to make quick and simple trades without any care for other details that might be cluttering their screen. Sessions timeout after 30 minutes of inactivity. Any custom changes you make in IQ Web only get saved when you manually log out so don8217t mistakenly think you can just close the browser and assume your changes will be recorded. We also noticed that any and all of your changes are lost permanently if you attempt to switch between the Standard layout and the Advanced layout. So be careful to pick and stick with one, or risk having to customize your gadgets again. Layout 8211 IQ Web Gadgets 8211 IQ Web Order Entry 8211 IQ Web Questrade IQ Edge is the big daddy of this suite and although it looks very similar to IQ Web it does carry some interesting differences. IQ Edge allows for an unlimited amount of workspaces. A workspace is a screen area allowing one to open and customize a new set of gadgets or windows for a particular purpose that suits a trading environment style. Multiple easily navigable workspaces is a valuable asset to active traders. The other big difference between IQ Edge and IQ Web is that IQ Edge offers a more advanced plate of options for order entries: conditional orders (e. g. trigger orders at a specific time, price, or volume automatically), bracket orders, more extensive alerts, multiple order entry windows, and the ability to order anonymously. There are a few subtle differences too. IQ Edge allows for extensive gadget customizing which takes them well beyond what is possible in IQ Web. However, most of these customizing features are visual (e. g. float, pin, drag-drop, resize, colourize, blink text) it depends on the gadget. Curiously, gadgets don8217t have a snap-to feature in IQ Edge and so they do not auto-arrange when the main application window resizes. It was a bit inconvenient but not a big deal because most people just position their gadgets at a particular spot and maintain the application window at a set size. Interestingly, any gadget customizations you make in IQ Edge does not transfer over to IQ Web, and vice versa. However, ticker symbols and related data inside gadgets (e. g. alerts) are properly maintained and do transfer over between web/desktop environments. IQ Edge also only carries the 8220Dark8221 theme (recall that IQ Web carries both a 8220Dark8221 and 8220Light8221 theme). One additional allure of IQ Edge is that it gives a trader the sense of comfort knowing their platform8217s trading activity will not be delayed or experience hiccups as might be the case if using a web browser. IQ Edge was written from the ground up using optimized C code and deployed for Intel/AMD processors ensuring the speediest of responses for the most diehard of active traders. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing there is no 64-bit version of IQ Edge. It will still run normally on 64-bit systems it just won8217t be running as efficiently as it could be. Here8217s hoping that in the near future an optimized 64-bit version of IQ Edge will be made available. Layout 8211 IQ Edge Charts 8211 IQ Edge Order Entry 8211 IQ Edge And now we move our attention towards Questrade8217s other platform. It is aptly named 8220Trading8221 and although it is not specifically part of the IQ suite it nevertheless exists as a very well integrated trading platform within the myQuestrade environment. It serves as Questrade8217s answer for those who, for one reason or another, may not have access to (or be compatible with) one of their IQ offerings. This would be the perfect choice for Linux desktop users or the ever growing presence of tablet carriers. Because it is a fully compliant HTML5 browser-based responsive experience, unlike its IQ Web and IQ Mobile siblings, it does not require a download or any third-party add-on (i. e. Microsoft Silverlight plugin) to be fully functional. As such this platform can also serve as an alternative option for Windows and Mac OS X users who for security reasons may prefer not to use Silverlight at all. Taking a spin with this platform was an incredibly liberating experience. It was surprisingly lightning fast and responsive in every web browser we tested. Memory and CPU footprint usage was astonishingly small despite the depth of options, activity, and functionality it had to offer. It8217s very clear this platform preludes Questrade8217s bolder steps of one day folding IQ Mobile and IQ Web under one unified branding 8212 a full-featured, exclusively web-based, experience for every device and every system anytime, anywhere a glimpse into the nascent future of stock trading platforms. Notable differences between this platform and the IQ family include the inability to set trading routes and sub-routes, lack of multi-leg option orders, no alerts, nor workspaces. If you are looking to use one or more of those missing features then you must use IQ instead. Layout 8211 Trade Platform Balances 8211 Trade Platform Activity 8211 Trade Platform Unquestionably, this new trading platform suite is a giant leap in the right direction for Questrade. The collection encompasses everything QuestraderWEB, QuestraderPRO, and QuestraderELITE (their now-defunct older trading platforms) had and some. And this suite does so in the most intuitive, feature-rich way. By taking the bold step to retire their older platforms by supplanting them with an agile next-generation trading environment is a sign that Questrade cares deeply about providing the best experience for the casual trader and demanding active user. Interestingly, upon further investigation that spanned several months we found that new releases for this suite is always consistent and swift 8212 a major new release occurs every month 8212 bringing with it a slew of enhancements and bug fixes, based on direct user feedback of their online community discussion forum: The Exchange . A few other unique features which I am surprised other brokerages have not yet duplicated is, firstly, the clever partnerships Questrade has with third party websites (e. g. iShares ETFs) 8212 providing one-click Buy Now buttons across the web 8212 permitting on the fly quick trades that whisk the buyer back into the IQ platform to complete the pre-filled order ticket. And secondly, a feature called Margin Power (for self-directed accounts) which, by its name, gives you a clue on at what it does. By linking your existing TFSA account to your margin account it increases your buying power within your margin account by leveraging the assets you already hold in your TFSA making it enormously convenient to enter new positions without requiring a transfer of new cash or selling existing securities. Both features are wonderfully handy The long requested single sign-on feature is now available for Questrade members. You now use one user ID and password to access the trading platform, myQuestrade, and the Exchange. This saves a tremendous amount of time because in the past Questrade had originally required at least three different sign-on credentials to access each of their trading landscapes, and so to no surprise this was a heavily requested feature. We welcome its addition. To get a better feel of what Questrade IQ has to offer here is a collection of video tutorials overviewing this trading platform8217s most common features. Videos 8211 IQ Web Videos 8211 IQ Edge Videos 8211 Trade Platform Now, to give you a better sense of who Questrade is and how much they8217ve improved here8217s a flash from the past with a historical look at their prior trading platforms. If you are not interested in knowing more about their past feel free to skip over this paragraph. Some time back, prior to Questrade IQ, Questrade offered a few other trading platforms for stocks and options: QuestraderWEB was their free trading platform, and QuestraderPRO and QuestraderELITE were desktop applications requiring a monthly subscription fee. For the remainder of this discussion I will only focus on QuestraderWEB. QuestraderWEB was a web-based application with a very pretty and intuitive user interface. It was Questrade8217s only free platform and required the Java plugin within your browser to function correctly. QuestraderWEB QuestraderPRO / ELITE A little note on exchange and ECN fees. These are the fees Questrade is forced to charge you when you make a transaction that removes liquidity from the market (i. e. buying at the ask or selling at the bid). Although these fees translate to mere pennies for most traders one can avoid paying them altogether by executing transactions as a limit (or stop) order at the bid/ask instead of as a market order request. For U. S. stocks you can also send orders to non-direct access ECN networks (LAMP, MNGD, or POST) to avoid these fees. Most people will sign-up for the standard marginal account which gives you access to borrow funds at an amount more than your current cash balance. This extended buying power ability is very useful and can come in handy when you need to jump on market opportunities. Assuming you8217ve bought on margin and haven8217t settled your stocks after 3 days of the purchase the margin interest rate is prime 2.5 which is inline with most brokerages. One of the selling points Questrade likes to bring up is that for mutual funds they will rebate the trailer fees. They call this their Mutual Fund Maximizer. Trailer fees are commissions by fund management companies paid to your brokerage house for being the retailer that sold you your fund(s). This commission is an ongoing source of revenue for your brokerage as long as you keep holding onto those fund(s). You don8217t see this fee because it is part of the MER of the fund. So Questrade is willing to rebate this fee back to you each quarter. But there8217s a catch. You need a minimum of 36,000 in mutual fund holdings to be eligible for this rebate. The reasoning is simple. There is a processing fee of 29.95/month so the rebates will start paying back if your mutual fund holdings is worth more than 36,000 (based on a 1 trailer fee). Portfolio IQ (Managed Investing) Self-directed investment empowerment (aka DIY trading) is offered by virtually all discount brokerages and has been a popular preference by the general public due to the myriad of easy-to-use tools and support made available to an investor desiring to control every aspect of their interests. With this style of investing customers have always been able to sculpt their own investment strategy, define their portfolio, buy and sell securities, and more. However, there is another option. For those with very little time while continuing to carry big investment ambitions Questrade introduced Portfolio IQ, the alternative to self-directing investing. Really known as managed investing, Portfolio IQ takes away the stress of investment decision making and puts them in the hands of portfolio managers of their Questrade Wealth Management division. Who doesn8217t want to take it easy and watch their money grow towards financial independence with little effort It8217s a dream come true The difficult part with that dream is figuring out how exactly to do that. This is where Portfolio IQ comes to the rescue. Becoming Canada8217s first online wealth management service, Portfolio IQ debuted as a definitive market disrupter by making managed investing accessible to everyone. Traditionally, managed investing has been an exclusive club for the uber-rich but Questrade, keeping to its roots of bringing all things restrictive to the masses, decided to do away with convention. Opening a Portfolio IQ account is straight-forward and only requires 1. As an extra bonus, this review8217s Questrade offer code can also be used when opening this type of account. Once open you8217re taken through a simple-to-use point-and-click questionnaire to set up an investor biography that identifies your risk tolerance, existing financial circumstances, market knowledge, and investment ambitions all of which is used to better crystallize the best portfolio for you. What8217s also great is that if your goals change then you can return and adjust your bio to keep things in balance, which will automatically update your underlying portfolio model accordingly. All the portfolios deal exclusively in ETFs (composed of a mix of various sectors, markets, and countries) and come in 5 flavors: With the added benefit of taking full advantage of tax-loss harvesting and providing a last quarter management fee refund guarantee if not fully satisfied for any reason, Portfolio IQ is an extraordinary entrant into the managed investing arena and has that perfect resonating mix all investors, big and small, crave when they daydream of an unshackled financial tomorrow. IPO Centre Participating in initial public offerings (IPO), secondary issues (additional shares/bonds offered by a public company), and structured products has always been the holy grail for many investors since the incredible euphoric frenzy of the 1990s internet IPO boom. Historically, because first issues usually tick up on first day closings it8217s logically understandable why so many want in 8212 it8217s a quick way to make an easy buck However, due to the natural laws of supply and demand interest in these new issues almost always outstrip the quantity made available and therefore only insiders, well-connected bigwigs, and the very rich are usually the only ones who have access to them nepotism and cronyism at its undemocratic finest. For generations the general public has had little access to IPOs. There was a brief moment in time when Wit Capital, an internet startup of the 90s, briefly unlocked this secret world, but it was short-lived. Questrade became one of the new Canadian trailblazers to usher in a sledgehammer back into this world for the masses. The Questrade IPO Centre, showcasing mostly Canadian equity, fixed income, and structured products, list newly available issues and previous offerings (for historic analysis). Their respective facts, investor summary, terms, and preliminary prospectus are also readily accessible. For instant notification of newly announced IPOs and secondary issues clients are encouraged to subscribe to the IPO Bulletin. Independent testing revealed that notifications were indeed right away. The centre is reachable on the desktop/laptops. smartphones, and tablets. When you see an IPO or other new issue you like, it8217s a simple click, tap, or a trade desk call away to express interest. An expression of interest makes Questrade aware you are putting in a commitment to buy a number of shares. However, this does not guarantee you will actually get any or all of the shares you8217ve requested. If a client places an expression of interest on the website, the trade desk will contact the client to confirm the order within an hour (rare cases may take up to 24 hours). There is a 5,000 minimum requested amount for submitting an IPO order. Some companies going public may even ask for an amount over and above this, but the majority of the time it won8217t be above the 5,000 Questrade minimum. Once the order is confirmed Questrade passes along the interest to the offering8217s underwriter. Although not possible right now, soon clients will be able to submit their expression of interest through the trading platform to reduce wait time and eliminate the need for a Questrade representative call-back to confirm the order. Cancelling an interest request can be made within two business days (this may vary depending on the province) after receipt or deemed receipt of a prospectus and any amendment (found at the online centre). All IPO and secondary offering purchases are commission free. Processing time for orders can vary but usually it takes around 3 weeks from when the underwriters first launch the IPO and when the offering closes. For some secondary offerings and preferred treasury shares times can be shorter. Once allocations from the underwriter are received Questrade informs clients via email or phone. Allocations, however, may be distributed on a pro-rata basis if an IPO is oversubscribed (the number of shares requested by all interested parties is greater than what Questrade received), and so, as mentioned earlier your original interest amount may not necessarily materialize to what you actually get. For example if Questrade receives a 50 allocation on their total order amount, they would then allocate 50 to their client8217s original order. Although the IPO Centre mostly has Canadian offerings U. S. IPOs do show up from time-to-time as well. Due to Canadian securities regulations U. S. and other foreign-based companies must file their prospectus in each province individually in order to be sold to residents of that particular province. Because many companies in the United States may feel that doing an IPO in Canada could be an added expense (e. g. listing fees, legal fees, French language requirements) and that domestic demand in the U. S. is enough to satisfy how much capital they want to raise, it8217s only logical that most offerings will be Canadian by nature. Interestingly, many international mining/resource companies will choose to file a prospectus and raise money within Canada, and choose to be listed here as well. TSX has a very large mining focus in general. Registered accounts (e. g. RRSP, TFSA) are also eligible to hold the vast majority of IPOs and treasury offerings. However, some IPOs may not be eligible due to their company/offering structure and how widely held it is. The centre is a very welcome sight and seems well positioned to grow into something incredibly special. Sadly, no word yet if and when Questrade will be issuing their very own company IPO ) Security When making trades one of the primary concerns held by most people is security. Like banks, most discount brokerage companies deploy different protection strategies to secure your account such as randomizing security questions, displaying pre-selected image captchas that only the account holder would know, two-step verification, or even providing digital key devices which in conjunction with your secret password must be pressed to generate the final half of the login passcode each time. Questrade8217s security measures have improved dramatically over the years. For example, upon sign-up for a new account you are required to create a user ID, password, and set up a few security questions. User ID8217s are required to be 8-20 characters long while passwords must be at least 8 characters in length and include an uppercase, lowercase, and numerical (or symbolic) character. Although this seems like a standard approach across the web this is actually new and a big improvement for Questrade. They also now include extra verification steps such as when you attempt to log in to your account from an unrecognized system you are prompted with one of your security questions. Security advice is made available outlining how to protect yourself by taking precautionary steps like using anti-virus software to keep your computer clean. Interestingly, they have made the extra effort by partnering with Symantec, using Norton Anti-virus to continuously scan/monitor their own internal files, ensuring your investments and privacy on their end are secure. Questrade was also one of the few discount brokerage firms that were not affected by the Heart Bleed Bug 8212 they were protected all this time. Although they don8217t have security guarantees against intruders breaching accounts on your end, if there is fraudulent activity and it8217s proven to be due to the negligence of Questrade they are in a position to cover your loss. Also note that Questrade is a CIPF member and so Canadian investors are covered up to 1,000,000. Final Thoughts Reviews online are overwhelming negative towards Questrade. Prior to writing this review I decided to read many of these complaints so that I could be aware of and keep an eye out for any of these problems. I even took note on exact steps for some of these problems with hopes of recreating them. I had originally planned to share a collection of these complaints but seeing as how many of them might have already been resolved by Questrade I felt the company deserved another look before passing judgment. So after spending a number of days using their entire suite of online tools, making trades, and attempting to recreate customer complaints I can report back and say that I did not experience a single issue. My conclusion is that either Questrade had fixed several of these earlier problems or these complaints were from beginning traders who were not familiar with the platform nor company policies. Overall my experience with Questrade was a very pleasant one. Their 8220killer app8221, so to speak, is free (no commission charge) ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and that one can execute trades as low as 1cent per share (4.95 minimum) with no catch. It doesn8217t get any sweeter than that In rare instances I sometimes come across other brokerages offering promotionals at 4.95/trade but when you dig deeper into their fine print it almost unequivocally is for 8220big fish8221 traders who must spend upwards of 100,000/month in trading activity to be eligible for the 4.95 offer. Clearly not for the average consumer. Obviously this is not the case with Questrade. Questrade8217s low commission rate is so good it serves as an enticer to make more trades more often and not have to hesitate by attempting to time the market in hopes of covering commission costs. I am happy to see Questrade has made many brilliant enhancements over the years including, but not limited to, a unified single sign-on approach that provides a more consistent milieu. There are a few areas that can be improved such as remembering user settings across different trading platforms, but with such dramatic savings found among all their services it seems understandable that one can8217t always have everything. So I will give them a pass on that. Should you join Yes 8212 a resounding YES Questrade offers a remarkably rich tapestry of features well tailored for new investors and seasoned traders. For someone like me, as a casual trader, who has experienced headaches with other brokerage firms it8217s nice to finally find a good home at Questrade who doesn8217t play games nor charge exorbitant fees. Questrade fits my needs perfectly and helps unlock my potential as a growing investor. And at the end of the day isn8217t this what we really hope a respectable brokerage firm provides us Use Offer Code: Canada to receive 50 in Free Trades from Questrade when signing up for a new account.
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