Category: Online Brokers

News: Webinar Roundup

RobHLeave a comment

Global X: “Beyond Borders: Why International Equity is Capturing Attention”

This webinar (registration link) takes place on July 28 at 11:30am EDT. I don’t myself make bets on any particular segment of the market, choosing instead to maintain my geographic splits consistent, including international equity (see my latest report on that). But maybe you don’t have any exposure to international Equity at all; this might be worth checking out in that case.

Global X is the newish name of Horizons, a company I’ve been dealing with for a long time thanks to their innovative swap-based ETFs, namely HXT (Canadian Equity), HXS (US Equity) and HXDM (International Equity)1 . They are useful funds to hold in non-registered accounts because they pay no dividends of any kind; this allows you to defer tax until you need the money and sell them2.

Wealthsimple: Five Costly Retirement Spending Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

I listened to the recording of this webinar, and you can too by registering here. Fair warning: this webinar is at least partly a sales pitch for Wealthsimple’s managed portfolios3, and you can expect a follow-up if you do register.

Sales pitch aside, I thought the presenters did a decent job in explaining the common errors associated with

  • Asset mix
    • Getting the asset mix wrong based on your needs. I talk about the concept of asset mix here.
  • Order of withdrawal (RRIF versus TFSA versus non-registered)
    • This was something my fee-based financial advisor helped me with. Even a DIY investor can benefit from a bit of oversight as you make the preparations for retirement.
  • Age to start CPP/OAS
    • Lots of Canadians take the money as soon as they’re eligible (age 60 for CPP, 65 for OAS) but that’s not always the best choice. I used the CPP calculator to figure out what my best option was.
  • Underspending
  • Ignoring Estate and Final Tax costs
    • These can be significant. In the case of my mother’s estate, Final Tax (and not Probate) was the expensive one4. The easiest way to reduce Final Tax is to give away your money while alive.

  1. Full disclosure, I own all three in my non-registered accounts. ↩︎
  2. At which point you will have to pay tax on capital gains, naturally. ↩︎
  3. And although I like and am more than capable of doing a DIY retirement, I need a plan B in the event I lose the capability to do this sort of thing myself. And so I pay attention to service offerings out there. Wealthsimple’s fees seem less onerous so that’s a vote in their favor. I hate fees of all kinds. ↩︎
  4. They would have been horrified at the tax bill and probably would have more aggressively donated their wealth had they known. ↩︎

Happy Retirement, Mr. Carrick

RobH2 Comments

Someone to whom I am greatly indebted is Rob Carrick, a personal finance columnist for the Globe and Mail. His insightful columns helped guide me over the course of many years as a DIY investor.

He recently announced his retirement, and I wanted to take this space to wish him well, and to thank him for his help over the course of his career. You made a difference, sir!

Things he has helped me with, just off the top of my head1:

In the course of writing this article, I stumbled across Rob’s guide to ETFs, a new-to-me resource which looks pretty awesome. And even better, it’s not paywalled: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/files/editorial/ebooks/Guide_to_ETFs_-_The_Globe.pdf

Once again, thanks so much Mr. Carrick, and I wish you a long, healthy and income-stable retirement!

  1. All of these are paywalled articles; you can probably get them online through your local library (the OPL link is here). As a subscriber, I have a few free articles I can share monthly, hit me up if interested. ↩︎

News: Wealthsimple AirPod promotion

RobHLeave a comment

Source: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/airpods

Wealthsimple is once again looking for new clients, or new investments from existing clients. Register by June 16, 2025, transfer $25000 or more within 30 days of registering, and receive an AirPod reward. If you prefer cash, the promotion website spells out the value:

  • Move $25k to $50k: $150 reward
  • Move $50k to $100k: $200 reward
  • Move $100k to $200k: $450 reward
  • Move $200k+: $900 reward

So not exactly a king’s ransom being offered here, but free money is free money.

The promotion registration ends June 16, 2025.

If you’re interested and want to send a little love my way, you can use my referral code: https://wealthsimple.com/invite/WOWQT1.

I’m an existing client and it’s a provider I would recommend.

News: HISA Table for May, Questrade Plus, WealthSimple Self-Directed RESPs

RobH2 Comments

Happy May to all, here’s some news from the world of Canadian DIY investing.

HISA rates are stable

HISAs, for those in the know, are “High Interest Savings Accounts” and offer a nearly zero risk1 way to earn some interest on your cash holdings. Read all about them here. “Class F” funds are usually available via your online broker, often bought and sold in the same module as mutual funds, although they are NOT mutual funds.

The periodically updated HISA table I maintain has been updated for May. No changes seen from last month, which is unsurprising, given both Canada and the USA have held interest rates steady over the past month. Here it is:

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2011, RBF2021, RBF2031, RBF2041RBCLink2.55%
ScotiabankDYN6004, DYN5004, DYN3065, DYN3055, DYN3075ScotiabankLink2.70%
Equitable BankEQB1001, ETR1001Equitable Bankn/a2.55%
TDTDB8151, TDB8156, TDB8158, TDB8160TDn/a2.55%
RenaissanceATL5071Renaissancen/a2.55%
Home TrustHOM101,
HOM201		Home TrustLink2.65%
B2BBTB101B2B Bankn/a2.75%
ManulifeMIP610, MIP810Manulifen/a2.40%
National BankNBC200, NBC6200, NBC8200NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a2.55%
Canadian HISA rates, last updated June 9, 2025

Here are the USD rates offered:

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2015RBCLink4.15%
ScotiabankDYN6005,
DYN5005		ScotiabankLink4.15%
Equitable BankEQB1101,
ETR1101		Equitable Bankn/a3.80%
TDTDB8153TDn/a4.15%
RenaissanceATL5075Renaissancen/a4.15%
ManulifeMIP611Manulifen/a3.30%
National BankNBC201NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a4.15%
USA HISA rates, last updated June 9, 2025

Questrade Plus Launches: Meh

In other news, Questrade launched a new subscription service2. Dubbed “Questrade Plus”, $11.95/month gets you free journaling, better quote data, and a subscription to Passiv Elite.

As a newly-minted Questrade user (got my first bonus payment yesterday, yay!) I see this as a net negative. Let’s look at why.

Passiv Elite is no Longer Free

One nifty (and unexpected) bonus I discovered being a Questrade client was getting access to Passiv’s advanced features. Questrade Plus means that particular freebie is coming to an end. Passiv’s “community” (i.e. free) service is still somewhat useful, but if you want automated rebalancing, you’re going to have either pay Questrade (and subscribe to Questrade Plus) or Passiv (currently $99/year) for that privilege in the near future.

Unlimited Journaling of Limited Use

The unlimited journaling feature of Questrade Plus targets people like me who do Norbert’s Gambit to convert USD to CAD on the cheap, but since I don’t do this sort of thing super-frequently (maybe 5-6 times a year at most), I’d rather pay-as-I-go (currently priced at $9.95 per request).

Real Time Data Streaming of No Interest

The “real time data streaming” feature targets the day trader. Other providers include this sort of thing for free (QTrade, Interactive Brokers). That’s not my thing. It does make me wonder who Questrade sees as their ideal client. Are they trying to be Wealthsimple? Or are they trying to be Interactive Brokers?

Wealthsimple Self-Directed RESPs, coming soon

Wealthsimple continues to chip away at the gaps in their self-directed portfolio offerings. RESPs were one of those gaps, but now it’s been filled, and the main website has been updated to reflect this. I can confirm that I have been offered a spot on the beta launch, so its release to the general public is imminent. Wealthsimple has offered robo-advisor RESPs for a while, but the DIY investor has been forced — until now — to look elsewhere for this.

  1. Unless banks fail. We are all in a lot more trouble if that happens. ↩︎
  2. Because, we all know, you can never have enough subscriptions, right? ↩︎

The Mechanics of Getting Paid in Retirement

RobH8 Comments

***This is no longer accurate; my new diagram is found at The Mechanics of Getting Paid in Retirement: 2026 Edition ***

DIY investing also means DIY decumulation. I recently completed a change in online broker from QTrade to Questrade and this is how I get paid in retirement; I’ll refer to the letters in the diagram below so you can follow along.

How I get paid, April 2025

A: QTrade? What?

I know I started by saying I completed the transfer from QTrade to Questrade, but due to an unexpected snag, I still have 4 accounts with QTrade which are currently paying a monthly obligatory RRIF-minimum contribution to my salary. I talked about the snag here, but suffice it to say I could have moved these accounts too, but at the expense of foregoing monthly payouts for the remainder of 2025, which I didn’t think was worth it.

Next year, those accounts will disappear and Questrade will handle the RRIF minimum payments.

B: Yes, there are multiple RRIF accounts

When I started the paperwork to open RRIF accounts, I was surprised that the same choices were offered as were offered for RRSPs — individual and spousal. I’m sure that some of the reason is due to the attribution rules for spousal RRIFs, but anyway, there are 4 RRIF accounts generating 4 individual payouts every month. This is automatic, so I have to make sure that there is cash available in the 4 accounts each month, or else my provider will happily charge me an arm and a leg1 to do the necessary asset sale.

The asset sale takes a few seconds; and with T+1 settlement, the cash is available the next day. Right now I try to do all my moves on the 22nd of the month, but admittedly, this is more time than strictly necessary.

C: Opening the RRIF account includes providing your banking information

I don’t know whether there is any provider out there who permits RRIF payments to be paid to a non-registered account, but so far it seems that they all prefer to make EFTs into a bank account. That’s not a problem for me but this may not be what you’re expecting. The money just shows up like a paycheque on or near the last day of the month.

D/E: The sum of all RRIF payments isn’t enough to fund my desired lifestyle

I’m withdrawing RRIF minimum payments and funding the rest of my monthly paycheque by liquidating assets held in my non-registered account. Another approach would be to increase the RRIF payments, but then that attracts withholding tax, which I hate. The monthly liquidation of assets in my non-registered account generates taxable capital gains each time, naturally. The advice I got from my retirement planner suggested I should be able to maintain an overall 15% tax rate by making sure that I have a mix of favorable taxable income (capital gains and dividends) along with the unfavorable2 RRIF income.

I keep an eye on my 2025 tax bill by using the tax calculator I mention on https://moneyengineer.ca/tools-i-use/. I can always choose to switch gears if needed.

In Questrade, movements of cash are done from their aptly-named “Move Money” menu. Setting up your bank account in Questrade was a bit clunky3 and relied on some app like Plaid to get the job done. Moving funds in this way isn’t instant, expect a delay of at least two business days in each case.

Another oddity with Questrade is that any joint non-registered account is set up as a margin account, which means it’s shockingly easy to borrow money you don’t have4.

One unknown with Questrade — I was able to move money instantly after an asset sale. It’s not clear to me whether this uses margin or not5. I’ll know more once I get my April statement, I guess. If I get charged margin interest, I’ll have to hold off moving money until the day after the asset sale.

F: Variable Percentage Withdrawal (VPW) requires the use of a cash cushion

I described the methodology I use to calculate my take-home pay in a previous post, but in essence my salary is related to my real-time net worth, filtered through a 6-month moving average so an anomalous month on the stock market doesn’t impact my take-home pay quite so quickly. VPW makes a “suggestion”, this suggestion is added to the cash cushion, divide by 6, and presto, the “suggestion” is converted to a monthly “salary”.

In any given month, the cash cushion is either being augmented by the sale of some assets in my non-registered account (the suggestion is larger than the salary), or the cash cushion is being depleted to make up the shortfall in my calculated salary (the suggestion is less than the salary). All of those movements are manual. Transferring cash between non-registered accounts is supported by Questrade, but it wasn’t supported by QTrade6.

All in all, this process should take less than 15 minutes a month. The first time included a learning curve and extra setup, but now that pre-work is done. Next step is making sure my spouse knows how to do this, too!

  1. Assuming your arm and leg are worth $40. ↩︎
  2. Unfavorable because it’s treated as straight income, and since RRIF-minimum, no witholding tax. I’m expecting a decent tax bill come April next year. ↩︎
  3. Bank accounts showed up in my mobile app but not on the web portal. To get them to show up there I had to set up my account — again — and successfully transfer a nominal amount. Only then would the web app remember my bank accounts. ↩︎
  4. Which I inadvertently did, paying myself from the wrong non-registered account. Sigh. ↩︎
  5. Since the transfer isn’t instantaneous, and since the cash really is available the day after, one could make the case that this doesn’t require margin. But I really have no idea. ↩︎
  6. For QTrade I had to use my bank account to get around this restriction. ↩︎