Hi Janessa. Thanks for the kind words! I really appreciate it!
To answer your questions:
1. Qtrade definitely has a good affiliate program, so you are definitely right to be sceptical of some of the reviews that you are likely seeing online. With that said though, I haven’t heard anything bad about them from anybody. From everything I heard they would probably be in my top 2-3). The only reason that I haven’t tried them yet is because I use Passiv a LOT, and Questrade integrates with Passiv very well, and so I’ve stuck with Questrade because of that (it’s also a pain to move accounts).

Qtrade has a list of ETFs that you can buy and sell for free, whereas Questrade lets you buy any ETF for free but you have to pay the commission when you sell ($5-$10). My reluctance to fully switching to Qtrade has also been: What if I want to keep buying an ETF that isn’t on their “free” list? What if they take an ETF that I buy off that list? Then I have to pay commission every time that I buy and sell. With that said, they do have lots of ETFs on that list. They have XEQT the last time I checked for example (that’s the all equity asset allocation ETF) which I really like so for example if all that you’re doing is buying XEQT with every paycheque, then Qtrade sounds really good since now you aren’t paying commissions at all. So if I was a pure asset allocation ETF investor, then I would consider Qtrade even more. But since I have multiple ETFs, some in US currency (VTI), it make sense for me to use Passiv, and therefore Questrade.

2. Are you using Norbert’s Gambit to convert the currency? If not definitely look into that as it could save you a lot. I wrote a guide on it here:
https://www.buildwealthcanada.ca/how-to-do-norberts-gambit-currency-conversion-for-the-lowest-possible-cost/

You can definitely invest in USD. Questrade has USD compatible accounts as well. I for example use Norbert’s Gambit to convert CAD to USD in my RRSP, and then I use that USD to buy VTI. This lets me bypass the withholding taxes on US dividends.

I suggest you talk with Questrade to get your questions answered on how their USD accounts work. I’m no expert when it comes to expat related things, but I’m certain that you can build a solid globally diversified portfolio using US ETFs (which are in USD). Every dollar that you are paying in currency conversion fees is a dollar that could instead be invested and be compounding, so definitely I would convert as little as possible since you’ll be paying a fee each time. The only part that I’m not sure of is the tax implications when it comes to a Canadian having a portfolio that is almost all in US currency. That’s definitely a question for your accountant. Also, while you’re speaking to your accountant, have them crunch the numbers of whether you should be investing within your corp in US dollars, or if you should be taking that money out and moving it to your RRSP for example. It’s a very complicated topic ( I use an accountant for this too) but its a conversation worth having. Having a corporation really opens up your options in terms of optimizations, but it does get complicated which is why I definitely recommend using an accountant at that point. I hope that helps!

Hi Jacqueline.
If you currently own things like mutual funds or segregated funds that you bought from a financial advisor or an insurance agent, then you may be locked-in to those investments, and if you want to get out, you have to pay them the DSCs (deferred sales charges) that they had in the agreement when you bought the investments through them.

These can sometimes be very well hidden and so many people may be subject to them, without even knowing about them. The amounts can be thousands of dollars so you definitely want to know about this and it’s worth your time to inquire about it.

If you did buy your investments through an actual person (like a financial advisor at a bank for example) instead of doing it yourself, then the next course of action for you is to reach out to them and ask them if any DSCs will apply to you if you liquidate those investments, and transfer them over to a discount brokerage like Questrade. Ask them to calculate what those DSCs will be (the amounts can vary from product to product, so you need to ask them yourself and they’ll calculate it for you).

I get questions about switching brokerages a lot, so I created a guide on how to do this, and it talks about DSCs as well. Definitely give it a read before you do it, and let me know if you have any questions. Here’s the guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1veUN9phvPTnyWaIOqyujfWvThc08pgSTSIVabbWH3rg/edit?usp=sharing

Regarding the 2nd part of your question, I’m actually not sure what they mean. If you are holding ETFs or stocks in there already, you can just transfer them right over “in-kind”. This way there are no trading fees as you never actually sold anything (just transferred). I suggest you ask Questrade this 2nd question directly (using their online chat after you login). If you’re having trouble, let me know and I’ll reach out to them using my own account.

Kornel

Hi George. I only use Questrade because of the free ETF buying but I took a look at Interactive Brokers (IB) for you. If you are buying individual stocks, IB does look less expensive based on their current pricing (May 2020). If you are going to be buying lots of individual stocks and buying every month for example using a portion of your paycheque, then I can see that being a good option to save some money. It really depends on how much individual stock trading you are actually doing. If you’re doing ETFs, then I would still use Questrade as it’s hard to beat the price when it’s free.

FYI: When you sell via Questrade you have to pay commissions on ETFs, so the “free” is only when you buy. Still, we are currently living off our investments so I do actually sell my ETFs periodically to live from, and it’s really not that big of a deal to pay $5-10 to sell an ETF that is overweight. So for example, let’s say the Canadian index is overweight (based on our desired asset allocation) and we need some spending money. I’ll sell the right portion of it which brings us back to the correct allocation and it gives us the cash to spend. So by doing things this way, it’s not like you have to do 4 trades for example (and pay $20-$40) when selling to take money out. Just the ~$10 or so to sell to do 1 or 2 trades.

One thing to be mindful of when deciding is the minimum balances or trades that are needed so that the broker doesn’t charge you some inactivity fee. I don’t know what that is for IB (but it does exist) so I suggest checking their site to get the most up to date information on this. For your reference, with Questrade, you basically need $1,000 across your accounts. So basically transfer $1,000 after opening an account and you’re done. You don’t even have to invest all that money immediately. Here are the details on their site:
https://questrade-support.secure.force.com/mylearning/view/b/Account/Inactivity-fees//?_qgcid=logged%20out&_ga=2.97730905.73012023.1588603685-1402825415.1586359368

For anybody reading this in the future: If the link stops working just let me know and I’ll find you the new one with the latest details.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the more brokers you deal with, the more of a pain it is to get a holistic view of all your investments. You’ll have to log in into your account and your spouse’s account across the different brokers just to see everything. It’s not fun putting all that in a spreadsheet if you want to do some of your own analysis and see the reporting. So keep that in mind too as maybe you save $20 every quarter for example by having things split across different brokers, but is that worth the hassle for you? What is your time worth? Just something to think about and consider before making a decision.

Does that help?
Kornel