RIF USD account

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manron
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RIF USD account

Post by manron »

Does any of the Canadian discount brokerages allow a US$ investment account to be
held in a RIF account?
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Norbert Schlenker
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by Norbert Schlenker »

Most these days allow USD holdings in an RRSP or RRIF. What are you looking for? Payments in USD maybe?
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by Thegipper »

manron wrote: 04 Jan 2018 15:11 Does any of the Canadian discount brokerages allow a US$ investment account to be
held in a RIF account?
My RBC Action Direct RRIF allows me to do this. It also allows me to make withdrawals in USA dollars.
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by gsp_ »

manron wrote: 04 Jan 2018 15:11 Does any of the Canadian discount brokerages allow a US$ investment account to be
held in a RIF account?
FWIW TDDI does not. “Working on it” which, based on past history with these types of things, could take years. The RRIF situation is the same as was the case in RRSPs before the introduction of US$ RRSPs(i.e. autowash with US$ dividends being autoconverted if not DRIPed).
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by ghariton »

gsp_ wrote: 04 Jan 2018 21:52 FWIW TDDI does not. “Working on it” which, based on past history with these types of things, could take years. The RRIF situation is the same as was the case in RRSPs before the introduction of US$ RRSPs(i.e. autowash with US$ dividends being autoconverted if not DRIPed).
Yes. I had to convert my RRSP and LIRA last month, and I'm not pleased about the lack of USD RRIF accounts at TDDI. For example, how does one do a Norbert's Gambit within such a RRIF?

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Wallace
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by Wallace »

I closed my TD trading account about 5 years ago for the same reason, transferring all my assets to RBI. I was told that they were going to introduce $US balance accounts "soon" even back then. To be honest, I think they just prey on people who either don't know that they are being ripped off by forex charges, or who don't realise how much it costs them. Either way, I think it's a deliberate business decision. My accounts at RBI and Scotiabank both allow dividends in either currency.

RBI paid all my transfer charges when I moved, BTW. It didn't cost me anything. But they pinned my cost base at the transfer value, so I've had to be careful about keeping a record of the original ACB at TD for tax purposes.

<edit>I had both RRSP and taxable accounts at TD at the time</edit>
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Re: RIF USD account

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Wallace wrote: 05 Jan 2018 09:47 RBI paid all my transfer charges when I moved, BTW. It didn't cost me anything. But they pinned my cost base at the transfer value, so I've had to be careful about keeping a record of the original ACB at TD for tax purposes.
IIRC from a few years back when I had RBC DI accounts. they will set the cost base to your numbers if you fill out a form online of some sort (table of holdings with requested cost base number) and submit it to them electronically. Did a similar thing with Scotia iTrade many years ago and it could be done DIY online with no engagement of Scotia human beings. You might query them via Secure Message....

It is a good idea to have 'good' cost base numbers (even if not 100% correct) with the brokerage just in case one's POA or Executor has to deal with that stuff and just accepts otherwise erroneous numbers on statements. I see comments online regularly where investors ignore the online cost base numbers on the premise they keep their own data, which of course they should, but they forget the mistakes that could happen if someone else has to deal with it on one's behalf.
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Re: RIF USD account

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ghariton wrote: 04 Jan 2018 22:16 Yes. I had to convert my RRSP and LIRA last month, and I'm not pleased about the lack of USD RRIF accounts at TDDI. For example, how does one do a Norbert's Gambit within such a RRIF?

George
It's actually better than the way it is with the RRSP's now at TDDI, in my opinion. You buy (for example) RY.TO, then you immediately sell RY.N. The proceeds are then USD which can be used to buy whatever you want in USD, or if you don't, they will be "auto-washed" into the US MMF. Once in USD, they stay in "USD" unless you do a reverse gambit back to CAD. So if you bought Apple with your USD, when you sold it, you'd get USD which would wash into the USD MMF. The only down side is it's a bit counter-intuitive but once you're used to it, it's fine.

Since they introduced the USD RRSPs you now have to call in to journal your shares if you want to gambit, which especially lately, would be a huge hassle.
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by pmj »

You can avoid the need to call TDDI "now" for a gambit if, at some date in advance, you journal a dual-listed share you already own to your US$ account. On the day of the gambit, when presumably you have cash or cash-equivalent in your C$ account, you sell the dual-listed share from the US$ account, thus creating the required US$ cash, and re-buy the share in the C$ account.
Need to look out for dividend dates, just in case TDDI converts the dividend for you (although the FX vig would be much less on a dividend than on a full purchase).
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ghariton
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Re: RIF USD account

Post by ghariton »

Spudd wrote: 05 Jan 2018 12:03 It's actually better than the way it is with the RRSP's now at TDDI, in my opinion. You buy (for example) RY.TO, then you immediately sell RY.N. The proceeds are then USD which can be used to buy whatever you want in USD, or if you don't, they will be "auto-washed" into the US MMF. Once in USD, they stay in "USD" unless you do a reverse gambit back to CAD. So if you bought Apple with your USD, when you sold it, you'd get USD which would wash into the USD MMF. The only down side is it's a bit counter-intuitive but once you're used to it, it's fine.
Thank you. I will try this out with one share of TD.TO.

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Re: RIF USD account

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Spudd wrote: 05 Jan 2018 12:03 It's actually better than the way it is with the RRSP's now at TDDI, in my opinion. You buy (for example) RY.TO, then you immediately sell RY.N. The proceeds are then USD which can be used to buy whatever you want in USD, or if you don't, they will be "auto-washed" into the US MMF.
IIRC, auto-wash works if you have buys and sells settling in USD on the same day (only the net difference will be converted to CAD with the usual vigorish).

Taking into account the settlement dates, I've always manually entered the US$ MMF buy or sell transactions manually (and by doing it yourself, you can use a higher yielding MMF such as CIB483).
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