Scotia iTrade (was: Etrade)

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Lemmings
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Post by Lemmings »

Bylo Selhi wrote:It's official. E*Trade is now Scotia iTrade. So far the only change is the red lipstick on all the webpages but Carrick expects that's only temporary.
Do you think they will raise the fees or are they planning on retaining the etrade structure? I am trying to figure out whether this itrade change is good or bad ...
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Mike Schimek
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Post by Mike Schimek »

Do you think they will raise the fees or are they planning on retaining the etrade structure? I am trying to figure out whether this itrade change is good or bad ...
Well so far their intro screen is irritating me. Every time I open my account I have to sit there and look at their intro screen and wait for it to finish its animation so I can access my account.

As to fees; Scotia is a bank. I'm sure all the banks in Canada are clapping their hands in glee at the removal of an independent competitor.
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Post by Jaunty »

Mike Schimek wrote:
Well so far their intro screen is irritating me.
I went through that once, then just created a new bookmark for the screen after the animation. I haven't had to watch since.
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Post by Shakespeare »

E*Trade is now Scotia iTrade
Silly name. It won't be long before it's Scotia Tirade to everybody. :wink:
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Post by marty123 »

Mike Schimek wrote:As to fees; Scotia is a bank. I'm sure all the banks in Canada are clapping their hands in glee at the removal of an independent competitor.
Agreed, but TDWH and RBC DI had brought their fees down to etrade's level. I can't see all 3 of them (Scotia, TD & RBC) all raising their fees back up. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Scotia to maintain the current fees (and maybe lower the usurious forex fees).
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Mike Schimek
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Post by Mike Schimek »

Agreed, but TDWH and RBC DI had brought their fees down to etrade's level.
Presumably because they were losing market share to etrade
I can't see all 3 of them (Scotia, TD & RBC) all raising their fees back up.
I can, now that etrade's out of the picture.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Scotia to maintain the current fees (and maybe lower the usurious forex fees).
I don't trust the banks. I guess I'm eternal skeptic lol.


Thanks for the bookmark idea, I'll try that out to get rid of the intro screen.

I have noticed another change; when you look at your summary account values in each account, they no longer appear to represent current market prices, now they seem to represent market prices from x minutes ago. To get current market prices you have to click the get quote button after selecting one of the securities.
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Post by queerasmoi »

marty123 wrote: Agreed, but TDWH and RBC DI had brought their fees down to etrade's level. I can't see all 3 of them (Scotia, TD & RBC) all raising their fees back up. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Scotia to maintain the current fees (and maybe lower the usurious forex fees).
Not quite - E-trade has their "lower-fee" threshold set at $50,000, while it is $100,000 for TDW, BMOIL, Qtrade and RBC. That makes a huge difference. I have some plausible chance of reaching the $50,000 threshold in the next 5 years; double that is a long way away.
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Post by seven3 »

I for one really hope they don't change the thresholds - as like the poster above I have a chance at hitting 50k for the discount...

I recently moved my account from CIBC IE, mostly for the lower commissions and the $5 / 1000 transfer incentive...so hope it iTRADE doesn't change much...

Maybe all iTRADE account holders should send Scotia a note...of warning...ha
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Bylo Selhi
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Post by Bylo Selhi »

Shakespeare wrote:Silly name. It won't be long before it's Scotia Tirade to everybody. :wink:
You mean like E*Tard is kinda rE*Tarded?
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Post by seven3 »

I'm currently in the process of trying to get iTrade to reimburse me for the 100 free trades offered to transfer my account.

I transferred before the re-branding during the 100 free trades and the $5 per 1000 transferred promotion.

I'll keep you posted if there's any issues or if they try to back out
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Post by queerasmoi »

Is there any sense as to what can be expected for the future of the commission schedule at Scotia iTrade? It seems to me that if I move out of Credential, the next best fee schedule for me is iTrade. But I still am a little shaky about what might happen when Scotia merges it all together and produces a new fee structure.
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Post by AltaRed »

I don't think there is any way to judge that. But because SM spent the time and effort to set it up first, it may be the model for the rest of their discount business. But if I was to guess about any changes, I suspect they could bump the qualifying amount for low commissions up to $100k from $50k without pissing too many clients off.
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Post by queerasmoi »

AltaRed wrote:I don't think there is any way to judge that. But because SM spent the time and effort to set it up first, it may be the model for the rest of their discount business. But if I was to guess about any changes, I suspect they could bump the qualifying amount for low commissions up to $100k from $50k without pissing too many clients off.
That's one of the changes I'd be afraid of. One of the reasons iTrade would appeal to me is that - as mentioned upthread - I have a realistic chance of reaching $50K in the next few years.
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Bylo Selhi
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Post by Bylo Selhi »

AFAIK there's no minimum account size at iTrade. You could transfer only your MF holdings to them in order to buy PH&N D-class funds, leaving stocks and ETFs behind at Credential (presumably to get lower brokerage fees.) Also iTrade's CashPerformer lets you transfer money between them and any Canadian bank.

Granted this is more complicated for you, but I think it addresses your other needs.
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Post by marty123 »

AltaRed wrote:I don't think there is any way to judge that. But because SM spent the time and effort to set it up first, it may be the model for the rest of their discount business. But if I was to guess about any changes, I suspect they could bump the qualifying amount for low commissions up to $100k from $50k without pissing too many clients off.
I think that in the current down market, they would piss a few people off because many of them who started at $100K in asset may now be lower. People starting up their nest egg and getting hit by new fees while their investments are trending down would likely be upset. It's not to say that SM would not still lower the threshold. There can't be any guarantee.

I'll go on a ledge here, and suggest that IF you move, you:

- Call iTrade and ask them to confirm the $50K. Note name of CSR and date
- Call back and ask for a "transfer concierge" or whatever it is that they now call them. Tell them you'd like to initiate transfers, and ask them to confirm the $50K. Note name of CSR and date
- Continue to grow your investments
- If/when iTrade raises the bar, raise shit and escalate. IF someone's allowed to wave that fee for anyone at that time, you'd probably be first in line for getting it waved, especially if you've reached the $50K before the change ... you moved because of the threshold, you asked a couple of people about the treshold, you can demonstrate that you are increasing your investments, etc.

BTW, only the taxable accounts attract the annual fee at iTrade. AFAIK, it used to be that RRSPs and TFSAs are exempted, no matter what size.
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Post by triker »

Has anyone else noticed the wheels starting to fall off at iTrade over the last month or so?

As a previous unwilling customer through the Scudder -> Mackenzie -> Schwab -> ScotiaMcLeod pathway, I was keeping a wary eye on Scotia again, at first. Beyond changing one vowel, and cutting the Cash Optimizer interest rate from so-so to not even in the running, nothing much seemed to happen for quite a while. Lately however, a number of irritants have crept in:
  • Support for security fobs silently vanished, leaving me scratching my head on how to login until I realized that only a password was needed now.

    The bond trading page was completely devoid of any inventory on the two different days that I tried using it during trading hours.

    Placing numerous bond trades outside of trading hours always results in a rejection of "security no longer in inventory". I could understand that happening once or twice, but not for every attempted trade over several weeks.

    Email notification of trades might have vanished. I haven't had any actual fills to test this, but my one sale didn't trip anything.
I'm probably going to wait and see what happens after they convert to using their own back office next month, but it is annoying at the moment to have stuff falling off of the end of my bond ladders with no way to re-invest it.

Do any other brokerages besides TD have online bond trading available?
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Post by AltaRed »

I believe RBC DI has online bond trading. I have seen them there, but do not buy bonds so I cannot comment.

As for Scotia iTrade, I too went through the nonsense of the security RSA token disappearing with no notice and unable to log in. I chewed their butts off about that one.

As for no notifications on trades, you need to go back in and check off the box saying you want notifications of trades (again). An apparent glitch during the conversion.
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Post by Mike Schimek »

Same thing here on the security token.

I think Itrade is slowly being absorbed by the big bank and adopting big bank ways of being run.

Etrade was superior to the big banks in many ways.

I might start looking for another independent non big bank broker at some point; I remember when I changed from National Bank to Etrade a couple years ago and was shocked by how much better Etrade was in so many ways. Also the "feeling" was so different; I felt like I was dealing with a capitalist company that wanted my business and was ready and willing to work hard to keep it, as opposed to a member of an oligopoly with a very different feel.

Not sure if any other forum members noticed the different feeling between etrade and a big bank.
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Post by travesty »

Has anyone found good cash alternatives at iTrade, in the vein of the "cash alternatives at RBCDI thread"? This is for an RRSP account, so the cash optimizer doesn't apply (and as pointed out upthread seems less than ideal after the Scotia regime took over anyways...).
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Post by AltaRed »

travesty wrote:Has anyone found good cash alternatives at iTrade, in the vein of the "cash alternatives at RBCDI thread"?
The same funds should be available. Go through their mutual fund list to find out.
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Post by travesty »

AltaRed wrote:
travesty wrote:Has anyone found good cash alternatives at iTrade, in the vein of the "cash alternatives at RBCDI thread"?
The same funds should be available. Go through their mutual fund list to find out.
I did about a year ago and failed to find any of the ones mentioned in the RBC thread, but there are more options now so I'll try again.
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Post by travesty »

travesty wrote:
AltaRed wrote:
travesty wrote:Has anyone found good cash alternatives at iTrade, in the vein of the "cash alternatives at RBCDI thread"?
The same funds should be available. Go through their mutual fund list to find out.
I did about a year ago and failed to find any of the ones mentioned in the RBC thread, but there are more options now so I'll try again.
I checked and indeed a few of the "new entrants" mentioned in the RBCDI thread, as well as an old standby (ATL5000, DYN500 and MIP510) were available, but I now remember why I was turned off the first time - the note at the bottom of the screen:

Please note that a 1% fee (minimum $38.88) will be charged on the sale or switch of all mutual fund purchases (this includes money market funds and the Altamira High Interest Cash Performer) held for less than 90 days.

So as a place for short-term cash, these funds are not useful at iTrade. The irony of that message is that the Altamira fund (AIS100) doesn't appear to be offered (online) by iTrade despite its prominent position in the warning.
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Post by AltaRed »

AFAIK, all discount brokers likely charge for holding mutual funds less than 90 days (if there is no other buy or sell commission). That is because their only income off these deals is the trailer fee and that happens only every 90 days. I would suggest you double check your alternatives to be sure.
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Post by Arby »

That's true for mutual funds, but the high interest savings accounts (e.g. MIP510, ATL5000, DYN500) are not mutual funds, so I don't think the minimum 90 day holding period applies. I know it doesn't apply at TDWH. Best to call your broker and check.
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Post by pmj »

It's my understanding that the 90-day rules applies to mutual funds that are not money market funds - and "high interest" funds like MIP510 are treated as quasi-money market funds. Specifically, TDW does not apply the 90-day rule to TD MM, RB MM, MFC298 & MIP510.
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