Tag Archives: commissions

Why You Should Group Your BMO InvestorLine Accounts Under a Single User ID

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If every account you have at InvestorLine has over $500,000 in it, this article doesn’t apply to you. On the other hand, if you have that much money at InvestorLine, why do you even need to read articles on my website? You could stimulate the economy by paying someone else read them for you. For the rest of us, here’s why you should group your BMO InvestorLine accounts under a single User ID.

Like a late night talk show, I’ll list the reasons you should group your accounts in order from least important to most likely to make you nod your head in agreement:

Reason Five: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Help You Manage Your Passwords

While for maximum security you should have a unique sign in password and trading password for each of your InvestorLine accounts, you may find it difficult to remember all of those alphanumeric strings without using string theory. It’s nice to only have to remember one password if  all you want to do is check your portfolios, not change them.

When you sign in using your User ID, you can look at your holdings for each account linked to the id. You can only look at the holdings in one account at a time, however.  You decide which account to look at by clicking on a drop-down list of the linked accounts.

Reason Four: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Save You Time

One Id. One password. Access to all of your account information. Quick. Fast. Simple. Easy.

Reason Three: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Get Your Deeper Kowtows

Why would this one surprise anyone? If you have over $250,000 in your User ID-linked accounts, you can get “exclusive access to a dedicated service team.”

Well, at least between 8 and 8, weekdays, Eastern Time.

I guess that shows Westerners how prejudiced InvestorLine can be. Frankly, it’s a bit bizarre given how many millionaires live west of Ontario.

Reason Two: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Gain You More Information

This one will take a LOT of money.

But, if you can amass a group of accounts with over $250,000 in them, you qualify for Real Time Quotes and Level II Quotes.

From what I’ve been able to find out so far (I don’t qualify for the 5 Star program) it appears these quotes include some information on who is buying or selling and how many lots they are offering or seeking.

One article I read listed about 6 ways large dealers can conceal what they are doing or even deliberately enter buy and sell orders to trick the market. So if information is power, make sure you know who’s got the true data and what they plan to do with that wattage.

If you can combine over $500 000 in accounts, you can also get the Market Streamer and some additional reports and research information.

According to the short summary on the InvestorLine website, the research on offer is “access to BMO Capital Markets research on only the top 60 TSX stocks.”

Perhaps they figure if you already have $500,000 in assets you already know what you want to buy?

The Market Streamer is a tool to “track a virtual portfolio throughout the day.” You can see an image of it on the InvestorLine website. The data should be real-time.

Reason One: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Under One User ID Can Save You Money

It used to be you needed to group accounts to achieve $50 000 in assets so that you could qualify for $9.95 trades. As of February 2014, though, all accounts of any size now qualify for $9.95 trades. So this incentive is no longer relevant.

Being honest, the $9.95 trades was the best advantage most of us could hope to achieve by grouping only our personal accounts. Getting to $50 000 was quite do-able. I’m not so sure about that $500 000 stuff, unless I get my Mom to shift all her GICs and CSBs to an InvestorLine account. : )

However, if you can get your grouped assets to $250,000, you also get

  • reduced margin rates on non-registered accounts
  • discounts on agent trading costs for some types of assisted transactions
  • reduced annual fees for accounts such as small RRSPs

And if you get up to $500 000, you get

  • even further reduced margin rates
  • even more discounted agent trading costs, and
  • some lower administrative fees for non-trade transactions

(Frankly, I think most people find the Market Streamer described in Reason Two as the only real perk at this level.)

I Guess I Want a User ID; What Now?

So have I convinced you to set up a User ID for your InvestorLine accounts? If so, you can tune in for the next exciting article: How Do I Group InvestorLine Accounts Under One User ID and Whose Accounts Can I Group?

The problem is I haven’t written it yet because I’m still trying to find out the rules about whose accounts can be grouped. After all, maybe I *could* get Mom to move those GICs and CSBs. A girl can dream!

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Do you group your InvestorLine accounts? Does it provide a benefit I’ve overlooked? Please share your views with a comment.

How Do I Get $9.95 Trades for my RESP Account at BMO InvestorLine

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So I opened a RESP account at BMO InvestorLine. We already had other accounts there with enough in them to qualify them for $9.95 trades. (At InvestorLine you need to have at least $50 000 in your account or in your accounts in total.) Although I added the account to my User ID and requested it be included in the calculations for the 5 Star Trader program in the future, nothing happened in the next few days to give me the Flat Trading Fee rate. So I wrote InvestorLine using the MyLink Secure email service. Here’s how they said I can get the $9.95 trades for my RESP account.

BMO InvestorLine Better Beware RBC Direct Investing and TD Direct Investing Are Making a Better Offer!

InvestorLine had better perk up its ears and pay attention. In the past few weeks, in early 2014, both RBC Direct Investing and TD (Waterhouse) Direct Investing have changed their rules to offer every customer $9.95 trades regardless of their account balance. For now, InvestorLine still requires a balance of at least $50 000, which can be achieved by grouping accounts under one User ID, or by meeting certain trading quotas.

What Did InvestorLine Say about $9.95 Trades When I asked by MyLink Secure Email

The BMO InvestorLine MyLink Advisor responded: “I have sent a request to enroll your new RESP account into Flat fee pricing. Flat fee evaluation takes place at the end of each month and any inclusion is done manually. It would be enrolled within 2 business days.”

I expect that means that the account will not be enrolled until 2 business days after the end of January. I’m not certain, though, so I’ll keep an eye on the account and see if it happens before month end.

When Did I Actually Get the $9.95 Trades at InvestorLine?

Aha!

The morning after the email arrived via MyLink telling me that it will be enrolled within 2 business days, it was enrolled! So I guess it means if you don’t phone or email InvestorLine, the automated process won’t pick up the account until the end of the month. But if you phone or email, you should be able to get them to set up the $9.95 trades in two business days.

Of course I don’t think I actually want to buy any ETFs or stocks today, so it’s almost irrelevant, but it’s still good to know.

How Long Did It Take for MyLink To Respond to My Request?

Unfortunately, MyLink isn’t responding as quickly as it used to. I sent my question on January 23, and only received a reply on January 27 (although it says it was emailed on January 26. If so, it must have been after hours, ET.)

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To get $9.95 trades in the “old days” at RBC Direct Investing, I had to phone them once the required minimum balance was in my account. Now all of their customers get that rate immediately. BMO InvestorLine seems stuck with a month end system. What does your brokerage do? Do you have to phone or email to get a better rate for trades? Please share your experiences with a comment.