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The latest posts from SparxTrading – in depth views on the world of online investing.

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup October 25 2013

Published October 25, 2013
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Coming into the home stretch of October, equity markets are continuing push higher.  The constant string of ‘good news’ is something that may lure more investors back into the markets, which is also probably why there are some major initial public offerings (IPOs) also being announced. Against the backdrop of optimistic markets, some discount brokerages […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup October 18 2013

Published October 18, 2013
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After all of inescapable deal making drama in Washington this past week, it appears that stock markets had already placed their bets that events would unfold with a deal being struck.  Rather than a disastrous crash, The S&P 500 hit an all-time high and Canadian traders also shrugged off their Thanksgiving turkey hangovers to push […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup October 11 2013

Published October 11, 2013
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After a bumpy week in the markets, it is nice to get to Friday.  For Canadian readers, it’s Thanksgiving long weekend so that means Canadian markets will be closed on Monday while everyone digests the news and a whole lot of turkey. On the heels of the major announcement last week from BMO InvestorLine, this […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – October 4 2013

Published October 4, 2013
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It’s Friday once more and with it brings a whole slew of discount brokerage related news and activities.  As the calendar rolled over into a new month, there was the usual hubbub with new deals being offered and updated by some major discount brokerages.  This past week also saw one major Canadian discount brokerage sponsor […]

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Discount Brokerage Deals & Promotions – October 2013

Published October 1, 2013
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This October the deal wheels keep on turning.    Overall, it looks like competition at Canadian discount brokerages is heating up with 6 discount brokerages currently offering some kind of promotion. To help make sense of the deals, this month we’re rolling out Deal Analytics (explained below) which will help provide support to individuals trying to […]

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RBC Direct Investing (re)Launches Investor Education Seminars

Published September 25, 2013
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After a long vacancy on the RBC Direct Investing website, the free educational seminars section looks like it has finally come back to life. For quite some time, the investor education seminars section has been more or less dormant and was pointing visitors to set up one-on-one sessions with its reps at investor centres. Recently, […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 20, 2013

Published September 20, 2013
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Against the backdrop of smartphone maker drama, securities regulator announcements and US Federal Reserve tapering, Friday is finally here – and for some, it couldn’t come fast enough.  While it was hard to compete with the headline grabbing billion dollar writedown or a sexy new operating system, Canadian discount brokers were busy making some big […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – September 13, 2013

Published September 13, 2013
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Welcome to the Friday the 13th edition of the discount broker weekly roundup.  It’s been an exciting week in the markets as news of the widely anticipated Twitter IPO became official.  This week, I’ll provide some highlights of fee drops and deal announcements that took place, followed up by a couple of interesting forum on […]

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Maintenance Fees Get no RESP(ect) at CIBC Investor’s Edge

Published September 11, 2013
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The swelling costs of funding higher education are on the minds of a lot of folks lately.  With the speed and magnitude at which fees for post-secondary tuition are growing, simply putting money aside for “junior’s” education may not be enough.  It seems like even the savings have to go out and find a second […]

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Discount Brokerage Deals & Promotions – September 2013

Published September 1, 2013
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Updated Sept. 20/13 September is here, and with it comes a number of deal extensions from Canadian discount brokerages.  Going into the home stretch of the calendar year, several factors might be at play that explain why there are more ‘extensions’ of deals than new deals appearing just yet. First, a number of financial firms […]

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Discount Broker Weekly Roundup – August 30 2013

Published August 30, 2013
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If Yoda were watching the discount broker activity this past week, he’d probably say: ‘a slow news week this was not’.  Going into the long weekend there’s quite a bit of activity to report from Canadian discount brokers. In this week’s discount broker roundup we look at the big news coming out of a major […]

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National Bank Direct Brokerage Extends Commission-Free ETF Trading Offer

Published August 28, 2013
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National Bank Direct Brokerage announced yesterday that their offer for commission-free ETF trading has been extended out until the end of October of 2013.  The commission-free ETF offer was first mentioned back in April where it was explained in detail. Some strings attached To recap, there are a few conditions attached to this offer (full […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 16, 2013

Published August 16, 2013
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As we officially cross through the halfway mark of August, interest in the markets is picking up on the forums and the discount brokerages are busy planning their September promotions. In this week’s roundup, I recap the most recent addition to the mobile trading platform reviews; I look at a couple of brokerages gearing up […]

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Mobile Trading Review – Qtrade

Published August 13, 2013
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This mobile trading website review covers the major features of Qtrade Financial’s MobileWeb as well as some of the strengths and limitations for self-directed investors looking to trade on the go on this platform. Access to the mobile website is possible by pointing a mobile browser to www.qtrade.ca. As with the previous mobile trading reviews, […]

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Discount Brokerage Weekly Roundup – August 9, 2013

Published August 9, 2013
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This week’s discount brokerage roundup will be short and sweet as we continue to cruise through August. In this roundup, a major US discount brokerage comes under fire for how it handled client orders, the mobile trading landscape gets a little clearer for some investors and a little bumpier for others and lastly the marketing […]

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Mobile Trading Review – National Bank Direct Brokerage

Published August 9, 2013
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Like several of its discount brokerage peers, National Bank Direct Brokerage has opted to use a mobile-friendly website to enable users with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to access and manage their investment accounts.  As such, no special apps are required in order to access the mobile trading features of a user’s online […]

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