Investment Savings Account (ISA) Interest Rates | Page 7 | Investing | Discussion forum

Yes, Scotia iTRADE still has the partial Level II real time quotes for Canadian stocks from its former E*TRADE Canada days.

Norman1 said
Yes, Scotia iTRADE still has the partial Level II real time quotes for Canadian stocks from its former E*TRADE Canada days.  

Nice thanks....hmmm....I have something to think about then. That being said as just noted TDB8150 did just raise their rates 25 bp so may just stick with that now. I do love market depth though and am trading much more these days. I should probably just stop being such a cheapie and pay for it.

savemoresaveoften said

Unless you are trading big size or very illiquid stock, being able to see market depth does not help much, Algo trading will beat any human when it comes to depth trading,  

While probably true.....it's always nice to see what's showing behind the bids and asks. IE if there is a HUGE number of shares on either the bid or ask depth not showing on the actual bid or ask it can help you make a decision about what is actually for sale. Only seeing one board lot on the actual ask and not knowing there are 10,000 board lots sitting one penny above it is a good example. Of course hidden orders etc complicate things but not having any depth it's hard to tell where you're at. Not daytrading....but moderately actively trading.

TD Direct investing has an offer where if you open an account and put 3000$ in you will earn $300. However, if you hold less than $15,000 with them, they will charge your $25 quarterly, unless you have someone else in your household to help with that balance. (I don't think they charge you for the first 6 months since your account was opened) I have moved some USD money in and put it in TDB8152. For me the rate is higher than the 2% that EQ was paying me.

CIBC has a similar offer, but they only pay $100 for putting in $5000.

Horizons CASH ETF seems to offer a higher return than any of the HISA funds (i.e. DYN6004). 5.02 gross - .13 MER = 4.88, vs 4.5% for DYN6004.
https://horizonsetfs.com/ETF/cash/

Norman1 said
The fact sheet says there is no CDIC coverage:

Although the ETF primarily invests in bank deposit accounts, it is not covered by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government deposit insurer.

It is an exchange-traded fund and not transacted through the mutual fund system like the ISA's. So, there are trading commissions except through one of the zero-trading-commission brokers.

Also, there's no guarantee that one will get $50 when one tries to sell. One hopes that there will be enough buyers willing to bid $50 per unit.  

It should be worth at least NAV, and there should be market maker assigned to make it happen. Of course if one tries to unload a huge amount immediately, that may be an issue.

Norman1 said
NAV does not support the price unless there is some way to require the ETF to redeem the units at NAV like an open-ended mutual fund is required to.

Market makers are there to facilitate trades, not to support the price. Many closed-end funds trade at discount to NAV for long periods of time.  

ETF market makers who create and destroy ETF units for the marketplace (for most ETFs) do end up supporting price indirectly though with significant lots on both sides with normally a few cents spread at/near NAV. Where the market maker is becomes fairly obvious in real time Level 2 quotes. I watch that data carefully for ETFs of interest before making trades. Further each ETF provider shows NAV at (or shortly after) the close of each trading day so that the investor can see the spread.

Additionally, the higher the unit price is, the less effect the spread has. A 1-2 cent spread on a $100 unit is less than the same 1-2 cent spread on a $20 unit. The Cash ETFs are, I think for the most part, based on $50 units which is not a bad compromise for spread inefficiencies.

The process does not work that well though in major daily market moves where market price and NAV can separate substantially due to inability to match market demand. It can also go off the rails if NAVs of underlying securities are 'unavailable' as happened in March 2020 especially with corporate bond ETFs where corporate bond pricing 'left the building' for days.

Norman1 said
The fact sheet says there is no CDIC coverage:

Although the ETF primarily invests in bank deposit accounts, it is not covered by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government deposit insurer.

It is an exchange-traded fund and not transacted through the mutual fund system like the ISA's. So, there are trading commissions except through one of the zero-trading-commission brokers.

Also, there's no guarantee that one will get $50 when one tries to sell. One hopes that there will be enough buyers willing to bid $50 per unit.  

Technically, there is some CDIC insurance coverage, but it's limited to $100,000 per issuer the ETF holds, which isn't that much. That being said, they typically don't hold savings accounts outside of the Big 5 or Big 6, and there's never been a Big 6 bank failure in Canada. The largest bank failure in Canadian history, interestingly, was a provincially-owned bank , and even that required no CDIC funds and all depositors did not lose anything as the acquiring bank simply assumed all the deposits and mortgages. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug