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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.

How Can I Move a Stock I Hold from the Canadian Side to the US Side of my InvestorLine Account?

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Setting up a US dollar sub-account within my InvestorLine RRSP account was easy. I just had to pick up the phone and speak to an InvestorLine rep. The trickier part was deciding what to hold in the US ledger and how to get it there. As a first step, I decided to test transferring some shares of a stock from the Canadian dollar side of my account to the US dollar side.

Here’s what happened.

Picking a Stock to Move from CAD to USD in my Account

I had some TD shares in my regular InvestorLine account. I had bought them on the TSX using Canadian dollars. They pay me my dividends in Canadian dollars. Since I bought some of them during the recent fire sale, they display a tidy little capital gain in the gains and losses column.

TD is also listed on the stock exchange in New York. If Americans buy it from that exchange, they pay US dollars for their shares. They are paid the quarterly dividend in US dollars. If they sell their holding, they are paid in US dollars.

A stock that is held on two (or more) exchanges like this is sometimes called inter-listed.

But you don’t have to be an American to buy TD shares on the NYSE or to sell them on it. Your self-directed brokerage may let you hold stocks in a US dollar ledger and lets you keep your profits in a US dollar cash account or money market fund. BMO InvestorLine allows this.

So I decided to move some shares of TD from the Canadian side of my account to the US side and watch what happened.

How to Transfer Shares from the Canadian to the US Journal for an InvestorLine Account

At this time (July 2013) to move shares from the Canadian dollar journal for my InvestorLine RRSP to the US dollar journal, I have to phone InvestorLine.

  1. Call InvestorLine at 1 888 776 6886.
  2. Provide your InvestorLine account number and your access password.
  3. Ask the agent to transfer the correct number of shares from your Canadian dollar account to your US dollar account.

Can I Transfer Just Some of My Shares to the US Side of my InvestorLine Account?

Being someone who likes testing things, I requested to transfer only 100 of my TD shares to my US dollar ledger. InvestorLine was quite agreeable and had no problem leaving the rest of the shares in my Canadian dollar ledger.

The agent did warn me, though, that for a day or two I will see the shares listed twice. He cautioned me not to over-estimate my holdings while waiting for the record keeping to straighten out. I assured him I wouldn’t sell shares I don’t have.

Can I Request a Transfer at the Same Time as I Create a US Side to my Account?

Even though I contacted InvestorLine using a toll-free number, and even though there was no wait time (!) to speak to an agent, I still combined my requests into a single call.

So yes, you can request the creation of a US side to your account during the same phone call as you request a transfer of some shares from the Canadian side of your account to the yet-to-be-created US side. How efficient!

What Happened the Business Day After I Requested the Transfer to my New US Dollar Sub-Account

So I made the request to create a US side for my account yesterday, on Thursday.

Today, on Friday, I logged in to my InvestorLine RRSP account to see what had changed. Here’s what I found:

Request made July 11 2013 to transfer 100 shares of TD when I called to create the US ledger.

On the morning of July 12 2013, as warned, I can see two line items in
my Transaction History:

Transaction Date: July 11, 2013
Settlement Date: July 11, 2013
Activity Description: Transfer out
Description: Toronto-Dominion Bank
Symbol: TD
Quantity: -100
Price: blank
Total Amount: 0.00 C

Followed by another line item
Transaction Date: July 11, 2013
Settlement Date: July 11, 2013
Activity Description: Transfer out
Description: Toronto-Dominion Bank
Symbol: TD
Quantity: 100
Price: blank
Total Amount: 0.00 U

NOTE: They BOTH say transfer OUT.

When I look at My Portfolio > Holdings
In the Cash balances section, there is a new line
Description / symbol: U.S. $ Cash
Quantity: 0.00
Average cost: blank
Current price: 1.0380 C
Market value: blank
Unrealized gain/loss: blank
Unrealized gain/loss %: blank
Portfolio %: 0.00%
Details: blank
Action: blank

Not surprisingly, the Cash equivalents and Fixed income sections are the same as always.

In the Equities section, there is a change.
I had requested they transfer only 100 shares of my TD holdings from the Canadian side to the US side of the account.

So this morning there are two lines for TD:

Description / symbol: Toronto-Dominion Bank – TD
Quantity: (original balance less 100 shares)
Average cost: same average cost as all week
Current price: 84.88 (yay! I bought during the dip!)
Market value: an enormous sum
Unrealized gain/loss: another enormous green amount
Unrealized gain/loss %: +4.36% (this is a blended average from multiple buys and sells)
Portfolio %: ***%
Details: two clickable icons
Action: the list is asking me to Select a chosen task if desired.

And the second line

Description / symbol: Toronto-Dominion Bank – TD
Quantity: 100
Average cost: same average cost as all week
Current price: 84.88
Market value: 8,488.00
Unrealized gain/loss: +354.36
Unrealized gain/loss %: +4.36%
Portfolio %: ***%
Details: two clickable icons
Action: the list is asking me to Select a chosen task if desired.

At this point, it looks like I still own 180 shares of TD in the Canadian side of my ledger.
That’s what they warned me when I requested the transfer after phoning in. Apparently on Saturday or Monday (he said “the next day”) I should see the Canadian TD shares vanish and the American TD shares appear.

Stay Tuned!

I’ll update this when the shares appear on the US side and describe how they are displayed and/or where.

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Do you find it tricky to remember you no longer own certain shares in your Canadian trading account because they’ve been journaled to the US side but they are still misleadingly displayed as Canadian? Have you ever sold shares you don’t have? Please share your experiences with a comment.