I'm just wondering what other canadians are using to trade stocks. I was looking at RBC since I bank with them and just like their banking it appears I'd get nickled and dimed to death.
http://www.stockbrokerguide.com/canadia ... rokers.php has a breakdown but they all appear pretty expensive. I only have 1 or 2,000 I'd like to play with but $30/trade and then $60/year in fees followed by $135 to transfer out the money in the end and it adds up.
best case with $1000 I buy 1 stock and a year later sell it and take the money. Thats 2x $30 for the buy and sell, $60 for the account maintenance and then $135 to get it out. 225/1000 = 22.5% so I basically need to pick a small cap and hope and pray because I seriously doubt GE will be going up 23% this year for me to actually make a profit.
If I want to be diversified and have 4 or 5 stocks I've got
10x$30 +60 + 135 or $495 in fees. Perhaps I'm not understanding some of the fees but the page seems very strongly oriented into sign you up and you can figure it all out when the first bill comes.