Category Archives: InvestorLine

How to Get Ready to Buy Shares of Stock in a Company through a Self Directed Account

Posted on by

It’s very easy to place an order to buy stock using a BMO InvestorLine account, a RBC Direct Investing account, or a CIBC Investor’s Edge account. In fact, it may be a little TOO easy. Before you click that Submit Order button, there are some things to stop and consider. This article discusses a few things to do while you get ready to buy shares.

Things to Decide Before You Place an Order to Buy Shares

  • How many shares do you want to purchase?
  • Do you want to buy all of your shares in one purchase, or ease in over several months? (Note that each time you buy or sell shares you will have to pay a trading commission.)
  • What is the maximum price you are willing to pay per share?
  • Are you willing to take a risk of the price going up above what you expect to pay?
  • Are you willing to pay “too much” if the price drops below the current ask price if you set a fixed price to buy at?
  • What is your cost (commission) to make a purchase trade?

Remember that if you place a large order to purchase a stock that has a low volume of trades, you may not be able to buy all of your stock in one business day. If so, you will have to pay one trading commission for each day it takes to fill your order. (To be honest, though, if you can afford to buy that many shares I doubt the trading cost is going to matter to you!) Click to read a bit more about “partial fills”.

Decide Within Which Account You Wish to Own the Stock

You may have a non-registered regular trading account with your self directed brokerage. You may also have a TFSA account, a RRSP account and a RESP account. You will need to select which account the new shares are for before you make the purchase.

You can only make the purchase with cash already in the account, or with cash your will move into the account before the trade settles. If your contribution room is zero for a TFSA, RRSP, RESP or other registered account, remember you can not simply add more cash to the account. In that case you would have to sell another investment to be able to re-invest the cash into a new set of shares.

Click to review an article which describes How to Review Your Holdings in a BMO InvestorLine account. You can follow its instructions to:

  • check the Cash Balance in your account
  • check the status of your other investments

Funding Your Purchase

If you want to sell a mutual fund to pay for the stock, it will take at least today (if today is a business day, and if you are entering the order before the mutual fund cut-off time, usually 2:00 P.M. ET.) plus one additional business day for the cash to land in your account the morning of the second business day.

If you want to sell a deposit in a high interest savings account, it will also take today (if it’s a trading day) plus at least one additional business day for the cash to be ready to spend. For BMO’s own AAT770 there was an explicit warning message several times that it might take longer to get the cash. In my test, however, the cash was reported properly in my account on the morning of the second business day after I placed the sell order. This is not a guarantee it will work that way the next time though!

If you want to transfer money in from another account be prepared for it to be slow. Personally, I wouldn’t execute the trade until the cash was in the account.

If you want to make a new contribution I wouldn’t execute the trade until the cash was received. I find it slow to get new money into my account.

Review the Pricing History for the Equity

It’s usually a good idea to do a quick review of how the stock has been trading before entering a purchase order.

Click to review an article which describes How to Check the Trading History for a Stock Using InvestorLine. You can follow its instructions to:

  • Review the day’s information about bid, ask, high, low, open and previous close.
  • Look at the 52-week high and low, the EPS and  P/E ratio.
  • Check today’s trading history.
  • Check a chart of the trading history for 5 days; 1 month; 6 months; 1 year and 5 years.
  • Check the dividend information.

Review the Dividend Yield, Timing and Ex-Dividend Date to See If You Will Get Paid the Next Dividend

If it’s of interest, check the Ex-dividend date. You must have your purchase request filled BEFORE this date to receive the next dividend. So if it is April 29 and the Ex-Dividend date is April 29, it’s already too late to get the next dividend payment.

Check the Dividend Yield based on the current price, if it’s of interest. (Note the yield will flip up if the stock price drops and flip down if the stock price rises. You won’t get that exact yield unless you pay that exact price.)

Also remember that for some shares, there is often a dip in price both the first trading day after the stock goes Ex-dividend and the day the dividend is paid. You may want to defer your purchase to one of those days, although market conditions could eliminate any dip with no warning.

Last Thoughts Before You Place Your Buy Order Using a Self Directed Brokerage

So before you place your purchase request, you should have considered

  • How much you can pay and therefore what is the maximum price you can afford to pay for each share
  • What your commission (fee) is to buy the shares
  • Where the cash is coming from to pay and whether it will be in the account in time
  • Whether you will get the next dividend payment or not and whether that matters to you
  • Whether the stock is currently trading in a price range that appeals to you or whether it’s trading higher than you are prepared to pay

Related Reading

Join In
Are there other considerations that should be made before clicking on that Submit Order button? What have you learned, perhaps the hard way, about purchasing shares? Please share your investing insights with a comment.

How Can I Look Up What I Did, When I Did It and for How Much in a BMO InvestorLine Account?

Posted on by

There are stocks you buy and hold and never think about. But then there are other stocks that you buy, sell high, buy again low, get paid dividends or distributions from, sell part of your position, enjoy the benefits of a stock split, buy some more and sell for a killer profit. And then you do it all over again. Although I’m sure you keep meticulous records of these varied transactions, you can also use InvestorLine’s history function to take a look at what you’ve done with that one stock over the past 24 months. Here’s how.

How to Check the Transaction History for a Specific Holding in your BMO InvestorLine Account

  1. Sign in to your account/s.
    1. Go to https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/
    2. In the User ID or Account # field, type your account number or if you have grouped your accounts under one User ID, type your User ID.
    3. In the Password field, type your password.
    4. Click on the Go button.
  2. From the drop-down list at the top right of the screen, select which account for which you want to save the history.
  3. From the My Portfolio tab, select Transaction History.
  4. For example, say you wanted to know everything you’ve done with TD.
    1. In the Symbol: field, type TD
    2. In the From: field, select the earliest possible date.
    3. In the To: field, make sure the most recent possible date is selected.
    4. Click on the Refresh Transactions button.
  5. The screen will display all of the available transactions during that time period for that stock. So if you made some purchases and sales and received some dividends, they will all be reported.
  6. You can then Save this information to your own computer using the same procedure described in the article: How to Save your Account Transaction History for a BMO InvestorLine Account.
  7. When you’ve finished your review,
    click on the Sign Out link.
  8. For extra security, close your Browser session.

Related Reading

Join In
Has the Transaction History ever helped you solve a puzzle? Please share your hard-won wisdom with a comment.