Tag Archives: BMO

When Will I Get My Dividends in my InvestorLine and Investor’s Edge Brokerage Accounts?

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Before I opened a self-directed brokerage account at BMO InvestorLine I owned some shares that I kept in a safe deposit box at the bank. Every quarter, about a week before it was payable, a dividend cheque would arrive from the company’s agent. On the payable date, I would deposit the cheque in my account and could spend my capitalistic largesse immediately. So I was very curious when I first bought stock in my InvestorLine and Investor’s Edge accounts to see when the dividends would appear.

BMO InvestorLine Is Not Too Swift

I was a bit disappointed to discover, and verify over many payments, that BMO InvestorLine takes one full day after receiving a dividend on my behalf to post it to my brokerage account.

For example, Cineplex, which pays a monthly dividend which is great for income seekers, paid its June dividend on July 31 this month. If I had received a paper cheque in the mail, I could have cashed it and spent the money going to a movie that night. With InvestorLine, however, the money doesn’t appear in my account ready to spend till the morning of August 1.

Frankly given this is all done electronically, I’m a bit surprised by the delay. Since the paper cheques are mailed and delivered to my home several days before the payable date, one would think the electronic file would be available ahead of time too.

Now let’s look at Investor’s Edge.

CIBC Investor’s *Edge* Isn’t a Faster Dividend Payment

CIBC may be trying to give investor’s an edge but if they are it’s not by paying them their dividends on the day they are earned. Just like BMO, CIBC is taking one full day after receiving a dividend on my behalf to show it in the transaction history and cash balance of my brokerage account.

Is There a Benefit to Brokerages In This Delay?

Having a nasty suspicious mind, I wonder whether there is any benefit to the brokerages in this delay. Where is the money during the missing one day? Still in the issuing company’s bank account? Or sitting in an undisbursed slush pile in my brokerage? I think I should send a secure email by MyLink to BMO InvestorLine and ask them.

Checking Your Transaction History for Your Dividends

I’ve mentioned before that BMO InvestorLine back dates dividend payments to when they should have been made in the Transaction History.

CIBC Investor’s Edge does the same thing in its Transaction History.

Why Does It Matter If the Dividend Shows Up a Day Late?

For ultra conservative slow poke investors like me, it doesn’t particularly matter if the dividend payment is made a day late. But I can see how it might matter to others:

  • if there is a great buy available on the day the dividend money should have been available, it must hurt to watch it slide out of reach while waiting one more day: even GIC rates flutter day by day
  • if someone is using the dividend income to pay bills, even a day’s delay might cause problems depending on how the dates line up between bills and dividend payments

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When does your brokerage pay your dividends? Remember you can’t always tell by the Transaction History. You may have to actually check your cash balance on the day the money should have appeared. Please share your experiences with a comment.

Where Can I Find My US Ledger Stocks in My BMO InvestorLine RRSP or TFSA Account?

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Recently I set up a US dollar sub-account within my BMO InvestorLine RRSP account. Then I transferred some shares in TD into the US side. I intend to sell them there and buy something on the NYSE using the US dollars I will get for the sale. So I’ve been keeping an eye on my account waiting to see them journal over from the Canadian side to the US ledger. After a while I began to wonder where they would show up.

When I made the request to move the TD shares to my new US sub-account within my RRSP, I asked for only 100 shares to be transferred. That left me with some TD shares still in the Canadian dollar side of the account.

The first business day after the transfer, when I checked My Holdings under the My Portfolio tab, I could see two lines for TD. One line was for the 100 shares I had transferred. The other was for the balance of shares that I didn’t move. Both lines reported the current share price and value in Canadian dollars. So I thought, mistakenly, that the 100 shares had not yet been moved to the US dollar ledger.

How to See the US Side of a BMO InvestorLine RRSP or TFSA Account

A few business days later I began to wonder why nothing seemed different in the My Holdings view. Rather than just phone and ask, I decided to check around the screen. Sure enough, I had overlooked something:

To see the US dollar side, or ledger, or journal, or sub-account or whatever it should be called, you have to change the display in My Holdings. Here’s how:

  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 the account within which you created a US dollar side.
  3. From the My Portfolio tab, select Holdings.
  4. From the Categorize by: drop-down list, select: Asset class & settlement currency.
    Click on the Go button.
  5. When you are finished reviewing your InvestorLine holdings, be sure to click on the Sign Out button. For increased security, close your browser session.

What You Will See When Displaying the US Journal for your InvestorLine Account

In the Cash balances section you will still see a line item for Canadian $ Cash and for U.S. $ Cash. They don’t move these lines under the next sub-headings.

The next new sub-heading reads: Portfolio held in CAD

Under it are the usual suspects:

Cash equivalents

  • GIC
  • Mutual funds

Fixed Income

  • Mutual funds

Equities

  • a list of your stocks with no heading. (Huh!)
  • Mutual funds (Remind me to sell that loser soon.)

Keep moving down and you’ll reach another new sub-heading:
Portfolio held in USD

For now I only have one sub-heading beneath that:
Equities
and a list of my shares.

Under this Portfolio held in USD: Equities section I finally see the two items in USD.
They are:

  • the Market Value, in USD; and
  • the Unrealized gain/loss in USD.

For some reason the listed Average Cost and Current Price are both still reported in CAD.

I can understand the Average Cost might be, since I did buy these shares in CAD.

I’m not sure why the Current Price isn’t listed in American dollars. Maybe the program just can’t pull prices from two sources easily?

I did go over to the Equity Order screen and check the spot prices for TD on the Canadian and American exchanges. They are not even close to the same price (because of the exchange rate.) They are trading about for about 4 cents less in USD than in CAD. The correct trading price (15-20 minute delayed) in CAD is being reported on both the Portfolio held in CAD and Portfolio held in USD sections of the screen.

How Can I See What Exchange Rate InvestorLine is Offering?

There’s also a little line at the bottom of this Holdings screen that says the current Exchange Rate is:
I USD = 1.0410 CAD; 1 CAD = 0.9606 USD

As you can see, these numbers are not opposites, so these must be the Exchange Rate INCLUDING the foreign currency exchange fee charged by BMO InvestorLine. (Otherwise if it costs 1.0410 Canadian to buy a US dollar, you should get 1.0410 Canadian if you sell a US Dollar.) I have no idea what I was trying to say here. What it does say is wrong as Peter politely pointed out.

Conclusion

I learned from this that I should click around more on my InvestorLine screens if I want to find out what’s going on in my account.

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Did you catch on right away that your US dollar shares could be found by sorting your Holdings? Or did it take a day or two like it did for me? Please share your experiences and tips with a comment.