Canadian Online Brokerage Review – RBC Direct Investing

[Brock]

What options strategies does RBC Direct Investing allow?
You can purchase call options or put options, write covered calls and, with special exception, write naked puts. Additional spread strategies are not allowed.

Need I say more!!! RBC is behind the times. If you are an options trader – look elsewhere.

[Nblumer]

I would have recommended RBC direct but the new watchlist is terrible. Essentially you cannot custom input data such as price and quantity and it is displayed in non-alphabetical order to the stock ticker. The changes came without any consultation and basically wiped out customer’s data. It has a good additional research function Customer service on the telephone is generally very good but I notice more mistakes are being.

Unless they reinstate the watchlist I’d look elsewhere

[Matrazy]

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[shoaib]

I recently moved to rbc direct investing, its horrible…

no stop losses
poor order execution
lack of order types
limited option strategies
web platform is very basic (like driving 1950s manual car)
no streaming charts
I ripped in exchange rates bt CAD and USD
in past 7 days I made around $150 as profit and paid around $300 to rbc in terms of commission and exchange fees.

more over I lost money because of no stop loss options.

searching for better sources now!

appreciate if some one advise on this.

[Yaja]

Stay away from RBC Direct Investing !

I had account with RBC since 7 months and their platform is not that great.
Account does not show real time value but 15min delayed. Don’t understand why???.
Second if you want customers to trade on your platform but cannot place trade with real time quotes at time of placing an order then it is useless for having such an account.
Third their customer service said we are electronic and transfer in-out is faster with brokerage like us but not the same with companies who are manual when I was doing my transfer-in. Now when I was transferring out to another institution their transfer out team is taking the same amount of time.

[tania]

the worst. I traded a stock and made $500, the next day they pulled out my profit and i was told that the stock i traded was restricted.they should have put a restriction on the stock.i tried to get my money back but no way its gonna happen.worst customer service. going back to scotia itrade.

[Allana]

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[Denise]

terrible… have just moved my cash and all my investments to RBC..45 minute wait or more at times, if you need to call direct investing. and worse than that, they do not even allow for a trailing stop…great way to lose money…i had always used a trailing stop when i was with scotia i-trade. i will be pulling my assets and going back….i can’t even imagine not providing what other trading platforms provide… i guess this tactic must make RBC more money..never mind the customers protection.

[Rick]

My love affair with Royal dates back 2 decades. It took awhile but reason finally won out. I spent $2500 in commissions last year + $1500 in foreign exchange fees. I’m moving my accounts to Interactive Brokers and expect to reduce my commissions by 40% and fx by 95%.

RBC cons:
slow order execution
limited order types
limited option strategies
no algo trading
pre 2k web based platform that is not cusomtizable
no streaming charts
high commissions (yes, I consider 9.95 + 1.25/contract high) especially when buying in USD
no free etf’s
charge 1.4% (2.8% round trip) to convert between CAD and USD

benefits:
a few, but none worth mentioning

[Raymond Anderson]

I have been using RBC Direct Investing for many years, and just came across this thread. I am surprised at how negative most of the comments are.

I am a Canadian living in South Africa since 1981, and also have on-line trading accounts with TD Direct Investing in Luxemburg and Standard Bank Online Trading in South Africa. As it stands currently, the RBC trades are $9.95 per trade in the relevant currency, the TD trades $14.95 for US$ trades, and SBSA trades about US$8.50. In all cases, the prices have dropped over the years due to: 1) competitive pressures; and 2) the realisation that with cheaper fees people trade more and there is the potential for even greater fee income (given that many of the platform’s costs are fixed).

As for quality of service, I have not found RBC that bad compared to the other two, remembering that I am half a planet away. I must, however, admit that I am not an active trader. Rather, I try to do weekly rebalancing. My primary service for assessing shares is Validea, which provides reviews of shares on the Canadian, American, and South African markets (www.validea.com, ca.validea.com, sa.validea.com). Interestingly, I am probably the only person subscribed to all three.

In terms of website design, the South African site is surprisingly the best. For you it might seem like deepest darkest Africa, but people realised long ago that there would be problems getting qualified back office staff at a reasonable price and there has been a huge investment in technology. Next best is RBC, but my primary concern is access to information, i.e. the charting, research, etc., and much less speed of execution. I can see where people would be frustrated.

The worst of the lot is TD in Luxemburg, and there is some arrogance because it is a multi-exchange platform that gives access to 12 markets (I think) and probably as many currencies. It has very little charting and research, and I instead have to rely on Yahoo finance.

Note, that one of the issues that I have is the opening of accounts helter skelter due to various regulations. The RBC account was joint with my mother until she past away, otherwise I would not have been able to open it. The TD and SBSA accounts are my own. I find the hassles of opening new accounts on other platforms so tedious that I am willing to put up with the higher charges and poor platforms (beggars cannot be choosers).

Will look forward to hearing other people’s feedback.

Raymond Anderson
Johannesburg

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