Author Archives: BetCrooks

What Happens When You Sell a BMO Mutual Fund in Your BMO InvestorLine Account

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I admit it. In the heady days of the late 1990s I bought a BMO mutual fund for my RRSP. Actually I bought 3. Eventually the time came when I moved these mutual funds into an account at BMO InvestorLine and then in 2012, I decided to sell them. Here’s what happened.

Written: 2012
Reviewed: 2023
Revised: 2023

NOTE: Starting in 2022, the rules for fees for mutual funds have been changing in Canada. This is impacting how some brokerages handle the purchase and sale of the funds. Please check fee information carefully before buying or selling a mutual fund in case the rules described here have been changed. For example, CIBC Investor’s Edge has stated it will change how it charges for mutual funds starting April 1 2023, but it hasn’t stated how it will change  yet!

Why Did I Buy BMO Mutual Funds in My RRSP?

In best “Wealthy Barber” manner, I bought small amounts of several mutual funds in my RRSP every month for a while to dollar cost average. Once some promotion or other ended, I stopped buying any more units. After a spectacular drop in market value against book value, I stopped reading my statements. For about 10  years.

I do not recommend others copy this style of investing!

However, after ten years, the funds were showing respectable performances. So I left them alone, as a sort-of in joke with myself.

Fast forward to last week in 2012, when I finally decided to get rid of the first of these funds. I had a very small holding of the BMO Dividend Fund. During the year after I brought the fund into my self-directed account at BMO InvestorLine, the market value had dropped. Eventually it rallied up to within $100 of what it was worth when I moved it in. So I decided to sell  it. I could make $100 just “week-trading” TD shares, and get a respectable dividend if I actually had to wait months or even years to make that $100.

So before the 2 p.m. deadline for sales of BMO mutual funds, I placed an order to sell ALL.

After the Sell All Order Was Submitted
The next day, Thursday, my order was reported as Filled, but nothing changed in my Holdings report.

The next, next day, Friday, the sale appeared in my Transaction History list back dated to the day I submitted the Sell order. The cash also appeared in my account, ready for me to re-invest.

However, it also created a puzzle. The Transaction History said the money was for the sale of only 121 units, not 121.759 units.

Of course it was now a Friday, so I decided to give it another business day or two to see what had happened to my partial units.

Did I Give Away My Partial Units in the Mutual Fund?
By Monday, I had an additional line item in the Transaction History. It says that .759 units were released at no price with 0 value! I started to steam a bit (that’s over $30 worth of cash, buster!) till I remembered I’m dealing with BMO InvestorLine. Reporting the way I expect seems to be unusual for them.

So I went online and checked the closing price for the BMO Dividend Fund for the day I sold the units. Then I divided the dollars deposited in my account by that price. The result: 121.759. So I had been paid for the partial units, they just didn’t report that I had been paid the way I expected.

BMO InvestorLine Has Room for Improvement in Reporting the Sale of the Mutual Funds

So all’s well that ends well, although the reporting in 2012, frankly, could stand some improvement. It should either report all of the units, whole and partial, sold and the price and the total sale value as one line item in the Transaction History; Or, it should report two lines, each with the number of units or partial units, the price and the total sale value of that part of the transaction. But perhaps that would make it a little too easy for users?

Do You Pay a Fee to Sell a Mutual Fund Held in a BMO InvestorLine Account?

There was no fee for the sale of this no-load fund. In 2021, BMO InvestorLine did not charge a fee on virtually all of the mutual funds it offered to buy and sell. However, sometimes there is a fee charged by the source of the mutual fund. Always check the prospectus or phone a mutual fund company before buying or selling their fund, no matter what self-directed broker you may be using to make the purchase or sale. Always check the brokerage fee schedule, too, for any changes that could add new fees. I can’t keep up with them!

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Have you sold a mutual fund through a self-directed plan? Did anything surprise you? Any sneaky fees or commissions we should know about? Please share your experience with a comment.

The Risks of Higher Fees from Partial Sales and Partial Buys

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At most Canadian online discount brokerages the fee is the same whether you sell 18 or 100 shares. However, there is one risk to know about.

Written: 2012
Reviewed: 2023
Revised: 2023

Be Aware of Thinly Traded Stocks

Some stocks are hard to sell or buy. No one wants to sell or buy their shares, so the stock is “thinly” traded.

You can check this fairly easily by looking at the volume of shares being traded, and the total volume of shares in the marketplace. If a week can pass without any sales of the stock, it is very thinly traded indeed! If a half-hour can pass without a single trade, it is also pretty thin.

For example, on this bonny October afternoon, the volume of TD shares is 400, 515. That is not thin. The volume of FC shares is 16,459. Quite thin. The volume of Leon’s Furniture, LNF, is 668. Very thin indeed.

Partial Sales or Buys (Fills) of Thinly Traded Stocks

If you put in an order to sell a quantity of shares and you do not limit that order to be good for today only, the brokerage will keep trying to sell the shares until they are gone. On any one day, the sell order may be only partly sold, called a “partial fill.”

However, the financial institution will usually charge you a fee for each day they make a sale. So if they sell 2 shares today, 17 shares tomorrow, and 81 shares the next day, the fees will be 3d x ($fee/d). If the fee is $10 per trade, that is $30!

To minimize your risk, you can usually set the order to last only one trading day. Then you can decide whether it’s worth spending another fee to try to sell more stock another day.

Unfilled Orders Usually Do Not Cost You a Fee

It may be worth noting that most brokerages do not charge you for an order that is not filled at all. For example, if you set an order to sell TD stock if it reaches $100 and it only reaches a high of $85 that day, there is no fee from BMO InvestorLine for this unfilled order.

Partial Sales or Buys of an Extremely Large Order of Shares
This risk applies whether you are selling 1 share or 1,000,000 shares. Even if a stock is traded in large volumes, if your order to sell is huge, it may not all sell on one day.

This is usually less of a problem, though, because you are making so much profit you don’t mind paying several days fees!

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Have you ever got burned by excessive fees when buying or selling a thinly traded stock? What tips can you suggest to protect yourself (or us!) in the future?