TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

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Wing
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Wing »

As a newbie in Canada, having about CAD70k to invest, is TDDI a good broker to go with?

I want to:
- buy Canadian stocks
- buy US stocks
- buy GICs
- issue USD cheques
- issue CAD cheques
- pay credit card bills in USD and CAD

Of course, I'm looking for a broker that can do all of the above with the lowest fees. I won't need any research or in person service, I can handle everything by myself online.

As someone without credit history, I would also hope having an account at TDDI will help me get a credit card and line of mortgage down the road at TD Bank. Is this a realistic expectation?
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big easy
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by big easy »

Speaking from my own experience, TD & TDDI are generally good but probably not the very best in terms of fees and service. I am a long time customer and so unless you have some reason for going for TD specifically, you might want to shop around. They used to be an innovator in the online brokerage space (TD Greenline) but have long since fallen back to middle of the pack.

There are minor irritants like no online GIC's, and perhaps important to you they make it difficult to do a Norbert's Gambit in an RRSP. Fees are competitive with the big 5 banks but you can find lower fees with some of the smaller players.

I don't use their credit cards, you may want to check out the Chase Amazon card which has a very competitive FX rate when used in the US/Europe. I can't speak to USD credit cards or banks accounts because I don't use them.
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adrian2
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by adrian2 »

Wing wrote:As a newbie in Canada, having about CAD70k to invest, is TDDI a good broker to go with?

I want to:
- buy Canadian stocks
- buy US stocks
- buy GICs
- issue USD cheques
- issue CAD cheques
- pay credit card bills in USD and CAD?
Canadian brokers do not give you blank cheques you can fill in, for that you need a bank account.

You may ask for a cheque by phone, and you can pick it up (watch for extra fees) or have it mailed to you.

Just in the same vein, you cannot use a Canadian brokerage account to pay credit card bills (again, you need a chequing account for that).

I am with TDDI and I'm reasonably happy with them. As a general advice, consider which bank you'll be happy to do your banking with (fees, service, etc.) and use their affiliated broker, it will make your life much simpler in terms of transferring to and from the brokerage account. TDDI is an exception to this, as they do have an easy mechanism to transfer money to them from any other bank, and a phone call away from asking money to be transferred out to up to 3 external bank accounts (money gets there in 24 hours or less).
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by kcowan »

adrian2 wrote:TDDI is an exception to this, as they do have an easy mechanism to transfer money to them from any other bank, and a phone call away from asking money to be transferred out to up to 3 external bank accounts (money gets there in 24 hours or less).
and they have tightened up the Interac transfers, limiting amounts to $3000 per 24 hours and $7000 per week for a fee. They do transfer RESP money fee free to other banks accounts electrically (I have done 2 BMO accounts so far).
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adrian2
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by adrian2 »

kcowan wrote:
adrian2 wrote:TDDI is an exception to this, as they do have an easy mechanism to transfer money to them from any other bank, and a phone call away from asking money to be transferred out to up to 3 external bank accounts (money gets there in 24 hours or less).
and they have tightened up the Interac transfers, limiting amounts to $3000 per 24 hours and $7000 per week for a fee.
Are you talking about transfers from a TD bank account, or transfers from TDDI?
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Wing
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Wing »

adrian2 wrote:
Wing wrote:As a newbie in Canada, having about CAD70k to invest, is TDDI a good broker to go with?

I want to:
- buy Canadian stocks
- buy US stocks
- buy GICs
- issue USD cheques
- issue CAD cheques
- pay credit card bills in USD and CAD?
Canadian brokers do not give you blank cheques you can fill in, for that you need a bank account.

You may ask for a cheque by phone, and you can pick it up (watch for extra fees) or have it mailed to you.

Just in the same vein, you cannot use a Canadian brokerage account to pay credit card bills (again, you need a chequing account for that).

I am with TDDI and I'm reasonably happy with them. As a general advice, consider which bank you'll be happy to do your banking with (fees, service, etc.) and use their affiliated broker, it will make your life much simpler in terms of transferring to and from the brokerage account. TDDI is an exception to this, as they do have an easy mechanism to transfer money to them from any other bank, and a phone call away from asking money to be transferred out to up to 3 external bank accounts (money gets there in 24 hours or less).
Thank you!

I'll definitely pick a bank based brokerage as that will help build banking relationship when I'm new to the country. TD came to my attention only because it earned the first bank based brokerage title last year among others (Money Sense I think but don't remember exactly). Just not sure if others rise above TD this year. I was in Canada twice this year and certainly see a lot of TD bank branches and they open in non regular business hours. That will help as I'll need to focus job searching and settlement tasks during office hours.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Wing »

big easy wrote:Speaking from my own experience, TD & TDDI are generally good but probably not the very best in terms of fees and service. I am a long time customer and so unless you have some reason for going for TD specifically, you might want to shop around. They used to be an innovator in the online brokerage space (TD Greenline) but have long since fallen back to middle of the pack.

There are minor irritants like no online GIC's, and perhaps important to you they make it difficult to do a Norbert's Gambit in an RRSP. Fees are competitive with the big 5 banks but you can find lower fees with some of the smaller players.

I don't use their credit cards, you may want to check out the Chase Amazon card which has a very competitive FX rate when used in the US/Europe. I can't speak to USD credit cards or banks accounts because I don't use them.
Thank you for your input, it's of great help!

Which bank based brokerage will let you do online GICs you know? Being new in the Canadian market, I would incline to put money to GICs rather than stocks at least for the first 6-9 months. When there's no online GICs, does it come with a fee to purchase via phone/in person?
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by AltaRed »

I believe all of RBC Direct Investing, BMO Investorline and Sctoia iTrade allow online purchase of GICs. But please confirm.

Also, BMO IL has a feature called Account Link where they give you a checking account that is connected to your brokerage account. You can pay bills, transfer money EFT like any other chequing account but has limited free transactions (2 per month I believe). It does not substitute for a regular chequing account but does all that I need.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by jasdlc »

Happy Holidays All. I was just reviewing my Dec distributions in my TDDI accounts and noticed that they have added the MAW104 ones twice in both my RRIF and my TFSA accounts. If anyone else is holding MAW104 I would appreciate it if you would check to see if the mistake was made on your accounts as well. By adding the units twice it messes up my holding amounts/$ totals etc. Thanks.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

jasdlc wrote:Happy Holidays All. I was just reviewing my Dec distributions in my TDDI accounts and noticed that they have added the MAW104 ones twice in both my RRIF and my TFSA accounts. If anyone else is holding MAW104 I would appreciate it if you would check to see if the mistake was made on your accounts as well. By adding the units twice it messes up my holding amounts/$ totals etc. Thanks.
I see something similar in TDDI RRSP. On Dec. 22 the acc had one entry, a DRIP of $3145.46 (123.095 units) showing a trade date of Dec. 21 for settlement Dec. 20. Today I see a second entry, another DRIP of $3145.46 (122.055 units) showing a trade date of Dec. 23 for settlement Dec. 20. Both tranches have been added to the BV, MV and total # units in the account. I'm not sure how this info comes to TDDI from Mawer or why they would book them as two entries on different days?
I'll keep an eye on the account for future adjustments though because I calc the sum of the two distributions to be a payout of 2.24% on prior BV - about twice the 1.05% TTM Yield that Morningstar reports, suggesting one of these entries may get reversed?
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Germack »

I have the same problem with MAW104. 2 distributions
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adrian2
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by adrian2 »

Germack wrote:I have the same problem with MAW104. 2 distributions
One of them may be capital gains distributions, the other dividends.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by jasdlc »

Thanks to all who confirmed my suspicions about the MAW104 Dec. distribution mistake. Hopefully they will correct the error by the end of the year.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by AltaRed »

Even if not corrected by year end, the tax slip issued by Mawer should be correct. The distribution recorded by TDDI is just an accounting record and any duplication should be reversed in due course.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Hammerer »

edit: Nevermind, DRIP went through today.

Anyone else's VTI dividend yesterday fail to DRIP?

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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by BRIAN5000 »

Is there a way to cancel a MM sell order on TDW TDII without calling, redonkulous.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by BRIAN5000 »

Someone humour me and check their Level II quotes, maybe not TDII advance dashboard, see if you can see 129 shares of MSFT offered for sale at $62.75.

I'm with TDII usually I can see my bid and ask orders but for some reason this is not showing?
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by adrian2 »

BRIAN5000 wrote:Someone humour me and check their Level II quotes, maybe not TDII advance dashboard, see if you can see 129 shares of MSFT offered for sale at $62.75.

I'm with TDII usually I can see my bid and ask orders but for some reason this is not showing?
Nasdaq is a special case. :twisted:

(the alternative answer is that the number of shares is too close to 2**7, but no cigar) :D
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by BRIAN5000 »

Thought it might be because it was an odd lot and everything else was showing in board lots so I changed my order to 100 shares, no banana's.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by Hammerer »

Called in to do an in-kind transfer from my cash account to my TFSA today.

I thought it would just go through at the closing price, but the rep asked me if I wanted it to be at the low or high price of the day.

Of course, I selected the low price to minimize cap gains. Is this indeed the price I would use as the "sell" price when doing taxes next year?

Is this an opportunity to market time? (e.g. if a stock skyrockets, call TD to in-kind transfer into TFSA to shelter gain)?
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by gsp_ »

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

Hammerer wrote:... if a stock skyrockets, call TD to in-kind transfer into TFSA to shelter gain)?
Maybe I am misinterpreting the question but:
There is a deemed disposition when you transfer in kind to your TSFA or RRSP from your unregistered account. So a capital gain would be crystalized then. Unfortunatley a loss cannot be used if you transfer in kind. You would have to sell to realize and make use of the capital loss.

Unrelated, this notice popped up when opening TDDI tonight: The Loblaw Companies Ltd. dividend for December 30, 2016 was posted incorrectly, and was subsequently cancelled and re-posted correctly as a dividend and special dividend on January 3, 2017; however, the original dividend was cancelled twice in error. A final correction will be posted later today. Yikes :? It took them 7 journal entries to report a 1 line dividend payment correctly.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by cardhu »

OnlyMyOpinion wrote:
Hammerer wrote:... if a stock skyrockets, call TD to in-kind transfer into TFSA to shelter gain)?
Maybe I am misinterpreting the question …
I think you are … Hammerer is referring to a single-day jump in price … when doing a transfer-in-kind, you can select the transfer price from among the day’s trading range … so if a stock shoots up 10% in a day, as occasionally happens, you can transfer in, select the low for the day as the transfer price, and shield that 10% gain from tax … obviously, gains accrued prior to that day would not enjoy this sheltering.

Hammerer … the intentional triggering of some gains to shelter other gains, may or may not be worth it in the end … if the stock in question is already 70% ahead of your ACB, and you transfer in on a day that it leaps in price, the negative effect of the tax drag may outweigh the positive effect of the sheltering. There could be opportunities, as you say, but every situation would have to be evaluated on its own merits, and would have to be evaluated FAST, before the market closes. The best case scenario would be where the stock in question is trading only slightly above your ACB on the day that the market causes it to spike. You would also have to have TFSA capacity standing by, ready to be used in this manner. All in all, I think the opportunity for substantial benefit would be rare. But it does exist.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by gsp_ »

cardhu wrote:and would have to be evaluated FAST, before the market closes.
Transfer can occur after market closes, not sure what the exact time cut off is. In agreement with rest of post.


Hammerer, a stock being up 10+% will often involve some aftermarket announcement the previous day which is of no value for the strategy being discussed. If stock X opens up 20% on a takeover offer this does not help you, only a run up during market hours is advantageous. That limits the opportunities, along with the other issues cardhu brings up.
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Re: TD Direct Investing (was Waterhouse) Service

Post by cardhu »

Good point, gsp ... I was thinking about the possibility of the price gapping up, but neglected to mention it.

Good to know you can issue instructions after market, I wasn't aware of that.
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