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I use TD Waterhouse for my TFSA and am quite happy with it. Even the relatively high transaction fees ($30 a shot) are a nice reminder not to get a big head and start day trading on little movements. If you want to just buy and hold a nice basket of equities or e-Series funds, it's perfect. Bonus points if you're already a TD customer (or are willing to become one), since you can track your holdings right from your web banking browser.
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# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 21:53 |
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# ¿ May 3, 2024 14:41 |
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The hardest thing for me was to allocate a percentage of my current TFSA limit to a bond index. Like, I know that I need to hedge all of my aggressive equity holdings, but uuuugh I want nothing to do with the bond market right now. Operation Twist.
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# ¿ Nov 13, 2013 21:46 |
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tuyop posted:Why? Are bond prices plummeting? That would be a Good Thing. Because the current political and economic situation around the world is basically a recipe for low yields, really high volatility*, and just generally a very high exogenus threat because of government policy. *When government lets go of their low-interest policy, yields will spike and bond values will poo poo the bed, all at once. It's like owning a ticking bomb.
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# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 01:02 |
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Go into your bank branch and tell them what's going on. They may be able to pre-flag your account or whatever. It certainly can't hurt to be seen as being transparent, and they might be able to suggest a cheaper alternative. Remember, if you have money, the bank loves you and wants to help.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 22:11 |
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The Canadian dollar had a bit of a bounce up this week, and since I think it's short-lived I decided to take the opportunity to put some of my TFSA fund into a U.S. dollar-denominated index. Just figured I'd take this opportunity to remind everyone that no matter what your diversification strategy (e.g. I'm personally avoiding bonds right now), it's almost never a bad idea to have some degree of currency diversification too!
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# ¿ Mar 31, 2014 18:46 |
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Lexicon posted:Has anyone ever successfully opened a TD e-series TFSA without visiting a branch? This is for my brother - I've talked him into the wisdom of actually using his TFSA room and throwing $100 a week into a standard CCP portfolio. He already has an account with TD which means there should be no need to actually visit a branch (for ID verification and such). However, the application form has no TFSA option. Anyone been down this road? I just printed off and sent in an application for a TDW account tied to my existing TD account, and after a few weeks it was open. Part of the application was for a self directed TFSA, and once its open, the web broker treats it as a normal brokerage account in terms of being able to trade whatever you want in and out of the TFSA. You can then buy e-series funds as a normal mutual fund buy; they usually settle by the end of the next business day and there's no fees. There's information on the TD site about self directed registered accounts, that's the form you want to add a TFSA to your Waterhouse metaaccount.
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 20:26 |
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I don't know how to automate the buys, but Waterhouse has amazing customer service, so you can just call up and ask. Also, the e-series funds have fractional shares, so adding exactly $100 or w/e per month is not a problem in of itself.
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 23:23 |
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Lexicon posted:Can anyone recommend a Canadian Amex that's worth getting and ideally has no annual fee? The Costco Amex card only charges you for an annual Costco membership.
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# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 02:27 |
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The best Forex rate you can get is by pre-buying your cash from the airport guys. I was utterly shocked at the spread between their good (and convenient since you can do it online and just get it at the airport) rate vs. my bank's "best" rate.
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# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 18:51 |
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Lexicon posted:Interesting. Precisely opposite to what I would've expected. Yep, that was why I was so surprised. Edit: http://www.ice-canada.ca/
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# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 19:14 |
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leaves of logic posted:From my own experience, the easiest thing was to book an appointment at a branch to open a TFSA with TD Waterhouse/Direct Investing. Once you've transferred the money in, you can start buying eSeries right away. I tried applying online, and it was a complete hassle ending with my account being frozen and me having to go into a branch anyway to straighten things out. I was able to do mine online, but doing it in a branch is probably easier. Tell them you want a self-directed brokerage account for your TFSA, its definitely A Thing that they can create. Don't mention e-series or anything that might confuse them, it doesn't matter to them what funds you buy after they create your Waterhouse TFSA account. Specialized Waterhouse locations like the one in downtown Vancouver are probably your best bet.
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# ¿ May 22, 2014 18:53 |
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HookShot posted:Ok, awesome, thanks. Hopefully the branch up here will know what to do despite not being specialized Waterhouse. You can apply for web broker access which will be accessible through EasyWeb. It'll be a separate line on your EasyWeb main page showing your account balance, which you can click on to take you to the Waterhouse website where you can place orders.
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# ¿ May 22, 2014 19:25 |
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Having a TD Waterhouse account for your TFSA is awesome and I can't recommend it highly enough. Even beyond e-Series, which is the best, their web portal is great and you can easily pick up individual equities with your 5% of portfolio "screwing around money". Just don't buy U.S. equities without first transferring USD into your account, the conversion fees are abominably bad. Franks Happy Place fucked around with this message at 17:05 on May 31, 2014 |
# ¿ May 31, 2014 17:01 |
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HookShot posted:Sweet, thanks for the tip. I recall it was pretty quick, but this being the weekend who knows. TD is generally pretty good at working on weekend, especially Waterhouse, but it might not happen till Monday. Edit: I read this as you asking how long it takes to connect your TDW web broker access to your main TD account, to clarify.
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# ¿ May 31, 2014 19:31 |
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HookShot posted:Sorry guys, no, the web broker access is connected to my account, I just went to move some money from my chequing account to the web broker account using the "Make a Transfer" option in EasyWeb. I'm just curious if that will be done on Monday, or a few hours, or longer than that? Oh, then my above post still applies. Probably Monday.
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# ¿ May 31, 2014 20:35 |
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Rime posted:So how do you guys feel about the TD e-series bond fund? It's currently the best performing thing in my portfolio by a retarded margin, but everyone is like "Canadian bonds are super risky yo". Everyone disagrees about portfolio makeup, so this is like asking "hey guys, what's the tastiest beer?" I personally wouldn't touch Canadian bonds with a ten foot pole, while others use the couch potato blend that has a fair sized bond stake. A chacqun son gout.
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# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 02:09 |
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Cultural Imperial posted:Like, how deep? Who, Vancity? Balls deep.
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 05:54 |
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I'm up about 10% in the last six months, entirely in diversified equity indexes.
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# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 16:06 |
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spoof posted:This post explains what to hold in what account for tax reasons, though it's geared towards holding ETFs. I would think that holding US ETFs that hold US stocks directly has the same tax treatment as if you held the US stocks directly. I don't worry about this because the small amount of witholding tax I lose in my TFSA on my US/international equities is vastly overshadowed by tax-free capital gains and the fact that I don't want any exposure to the bloated plague corpse known as the Canadian economy. If you really care about this, just stick to equities that just don't pay dividends, like Berkshire Hathaway or Google or whatever.
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# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 19:05 |
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dogpower posted:For blue chip companies though, I wonder if the lost in dividends over a long time frame outweigh the tax free capital gains. You don't lose all of the dividends, just 15% of them. I'm not advocating one way or another, just stating the facts. My personal TFSA spread is TDB906 (TD Euro Index), TDB952 (TD US Index), and TDB911 (TD International Index). There's probably quite a bit of dividend-paying stock in that sausage, but taking a small hit in the dividends they pay out is offset by convenience, not needing to pay transaction fees (this alone probably offsets a good chunk of the lost taxes), and diversification. Franks Happy Place fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jun 14, 2014 |
# ¿ Jun 14, 2014 17:49 |
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Kal Torak posted:Unless you are able to fully max out your TFSA and still have some invested in a margin account on the side, worrying about the 15% withholding on US dividend stocks is ridiculous. Yeah, if you assume $5000 worth of TFSA value sitting 100% in dividend-paying equities, which were yielding 2-3% returns annually, you're talking about like $20 a year in taxes.
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# ¿ Jun 14, 2014 18:13 |
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Lexicon posted:Canada is like 15-20% of my portfolio. I hope you've done your homework into how housing bubble collapses affect consumer credit products across the entire spectrum! Canadian banks are going to get hosed, whether or not they get away with offloading all of their risk onto CMHC with no blowback whatsoever. Franks Happy Place fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jun 19, 2014 |
# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 17:35 |
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Lexicon posted:A balanced global portfolio has returned north of 6% over the past 20 years, and that's including 2008 - so you can probably deduce how worried I am about the short term effects on Canadian banks of Johnny Canuck borrowing less money for Silverados in a portfolio with a multi-decade horizon. Not very. Hey, if you want to leave 20% of your portfolio exposed to an undiversified one-trick petrostate with a shrinking economy and the world's biggest asset bubble, go hog wild. I just take the view when investing that I should probably, you know, limit exposure to ticking time bombs.
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# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 17:53 |
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What, is it illegal for Canadians to buy U.S. and international index funds now? Having to rely on the Canadian economy for employment is all the exposure I am willing to stomach. If I felt some compunction to staying in the TSX, you'd better believe it would be at 10% or less right now.
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# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 18:02 |
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Lexicon posted:So we're really just quibbling over asset allocation then. You say 10, I say 20. Fine. I say zero, ten is acceptable, twenty I'm scheduling you an intervention. But yes, this is in the spirit of debate, aka just bullshittin' Edit: For more content, my biggest objection to the TSX/Canadian indexes is their heavy exposure to banks. Even if you think the bubble could drag on for a while yet, the banks are going to start dropping profits as credit levels max out and people start defaulting on unsecured credit first (there's a ton of research that people give up on their credit cards/LOCs/car loans long before the mortgage goes). So really, to me, the best case scenario is that the Big 5 zombie along for a while, squeezing out ever-declining profits and dragging down the TSX, before finally making GBS threads their pants. Worst case, they poo poo their pants sooner. No thank you. Franks Happy Place fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 19, 2014 |
# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 18:05 |
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cowofwar posted:The Canadian banks are massively diversified globally Can you quantify that with numbers?
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# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 23:43 |
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If you have a TDW account then you really should be going with eSeries, since they have no transaction cost at all, and their MERs are really really good.
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# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 19:20 |
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Also, ask them to create an account that is a TFSA (and contribute up to that amount as you are able). That way any gains you make in there will be tax-free. It's really nice with the TD system since you can control your TFSA investments from your browser.
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# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 02:59 |
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JawKnee posted:I would like to see the costs of a higher MER though, so I'm looking forward to that Doing some napkin math, over 25 years, a $100,000 investment that made 5% a year and compounded would cost $125,000 more for a 3% MER versus a .5% one. So like 40% of the value at the end of that time.
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# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 03:44 |
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toe knee hand posted:When did TD Waterhouse start charging? I set up a non-registered account there in I think 2006, never had more than $14k in there and wasn't charged fees. I know commissions used to be higher though. They don't charge on mine either, just the trade fees (which don't apply to eSeries anyways). Honestly my experience with TDW is nothing remotely like what people in here are describing.
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# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 06:25 |
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Lexicon posted:Currency risk: if all your costs are in Canadian dollars, it sucks if many of your assets, denominated in foreign currency, start to devalue because CAD gets stronger. Plus I don't exactly see where the short-term strength argument is for the currency of a country whose two biggest financial features are 1) being a petrostate with heavy exposure to China's imploding economy and 2) having the world's largest real estate bubble. The American economy is doing better than ours, and as long as that is the case (hint: it will be the case for a decade or more), I see our dollar being weak. Not to mention, I don't really give a poo poo what currency my stocks are denominated in, so long as they aren't in the eggs-in-a-tiny-basket TSX.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 00:43 |
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Bucswabe posted:Out of curiosity, if the Canadian market absolutely tanked, would you then bump up your allocation to Canadian funds to take advantage of the rebound? The problem with this thinking (which is theoretically correct/sound, just not in this particular case) is that the Canadian indexes are very heavily weighted with bank stocks. If the Canadian market tanks it will likely be either caused by, or concomitant with, the banks also making GBS threads the bed, rendering most Canadian equity indexes a poor investment for the medium term. After all, they're dividend stocks, and they will be down for the duration of the recession, if not pressed to the point of crisis (depending on how their CMHC claims go, for instance). The TSX is literally "banks, oil, some other natural resources, and a little fig leaf".
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 03:18 |
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tuyop posted:So how much do you allocate for Canadian poo poo? Zero. I decided that my wife and I having jobs in Canada was enough exposure to the Canadian economy, when you think about it.
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# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 04:35 |
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The short answer is that unless you are making six figures you probably want a TFSA. And no, TFSAs are not just for short-term poo poo, in fact they are best stuffed full of long-term growth stocks (like eSeries funds!)
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# ¿ Oct 16, 2014 16:54 |
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It's been a good week to have zero exposure to Canadian equities and be holding USD-denominated funds.
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# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 20:30 |
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Lexicon posted:Indeed. I've long been a fan of holding a large portion of my portfolio denominated in USD purely for the currency diversification. I don't quite go so far as zero exposure to domestic equities, but in general, if you live and work here, it's stupid to have outsized domestic exposure in your portfolio. This is oddly common for some reason - I'm not sure if it's just a Canadian thing, or a home-country bias that exists in most advanced economies. If I told a Canadian they should put 75% of their investment funds into (say) Australian or Mexican or South Korean equities, they'd think I was insane, but somehow as long as you live in a tiny country with a two-bit economy it's OK to go hog wild.
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# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 21:14 |
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I have a brokerage TFSA stuffed full of e-series that I was able to set up by mail.
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# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 21:44 |
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Lexicon posted:Yeah? How'd you swing that? There's no option on the form. http://www.tdwaterhouse.ca/products-services/investing/tfsa-index.jsp You just choose the options for a self-directed TFSA, basically. Franks Happy Place fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Nov 7, 2014 |
# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 22:02 |
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Lexicon posted:Ah, I was talking TD mutual fund, not Waterhouse. Waterhouse eliminated their start up fees and minimum balance requirements, I don't see why that's not an option for people.
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# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 01:13 |
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# ¿ May 3, 2024 14:41 |
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melon cat posted:I have a Waterhouse account with an existing TFSA (stocks). I sure as heck would like to invest some money into the e-series funds. Do I just need to send them the e-series application that's listed on their website? No, you can just purchase them as mutual funds by code number. Like, if you wanted to buy some of their USD-denominated DJIA index fund, just put TDB953 in the fund line. You can also buy fractional shares, if you want to buy a specific dollar amount.
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# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 01:27 |