WealthSimple Trade - commission-free trading platform

What is Wealthsimple?

Wealthsimple Inc. is a Canadian online investment platform. It was founded in September 2014 by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt, and Rudy Adler and is based in Toronto. 

Since 2014, Canada’s Wealthsimple has helped hundreds of thousands of investors who want to grow their money. It's a commission-free stocks and ETFs trading platform. 

Wealthsimple Trade offers TFSA, RRSP, RESP, FHSA,Cash, Crypto and non-registered accounts.


Is Wealthsimple safe?

Wealthsimple 100% keeps your money safe.


How is my cash protected, exactly?

Everything is encrypted: Wealthsimple uses state-of-the-art data encryption when handling your financial information and two-factor authentication (2FA) protection.

Wealthsimple works with CDIC (Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation) member institutions to stack your protection to up to $500,000 on eligible deposits. Learn more about CDIC coverage

Powerful backing: Wealthsimple has received $265M in investment from some of the world's largest financial institutions.


Wealthsimple Trade Fees

Wealthsimple Trade is the first Canadian stock trading platform to offer commission-free trading.
There are thousands of Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs are available on WealthSimple trade platform.


$0 to open or close accounts.
$0 to buy, sell, and withdraw Canadian stocks and ETFs.
$0 fees to receive electronic statements.
Even if your account is inactive, still they don't charge you any fees.

Even though Wealthsimple Trade doesn’t charge trading fees for US-listed Stocks and ETFs. However, if you trade US-listed stocks or ETFs, they charge 1.5% currency conversion fee each time buy or sell.

For example: If you buy $5,000 worth of Apple Stock and sell it later, You would incur a total 3% (buy+sell) currency conversion fee, which is $150. Very expensive!

Recommendation: Questrade brokerage platform

Investing in US stocks or ETFs recommends using the Questrade brokerage platform.

Compared with Wealthsimple, the foreign exchange fee in Questrade is very cheap, 
With the strategy of Norbert’s Gambit, you can avoid that hidden Questrade currency conversion fee and save on purchasing US dollars.

Questrade is the first exchange in Canada that can deposit US dollars. Investors can own a US dollar account and trade directly.

How to Open a WealthSimple Trade Account?

Before you begin sign up:

Be a Canadian citizen, Canadian resident, or have a valid Canadian visa
Meet the minimum age requirement set by your province
Have a Social Insurance Number (SIN)
Have a Canadian residential address
Be able to satisfy identity verification requirements



Sign up and get $25

Get a $25 cash reward by using WealthSimple referral link to open a WealthSimple trade account and fund at least $150 within 30 days of account opening.

Set up your profile
  • Choose an email address and password
  • Select the product you’d like to start with
  • Follow the prompts to fill out your personal information
Link a deposit account from a bank

Link a chequing or savings account from your bank to transfer cash of at least $150 to your Wealthsimple Trade account within 30 days of account opening.


Congregation! 
You will get a $25 cash bonus.
Now you can start investing. 



There are no account minimums or fees so you can start trading immediately upon funding your account. It means you can get started investing with as little as $1.

Wealthsimple Trade 4 Order Types

  • Market Buy: Complete your trade at the best price available on the market at the time of trade.
  • Fractional Buy: Trade only a fraction of a whole share.
  • Limit Buy: Set your ideal price to buy the shares.
  • Recurring Buy: The amount you want to invest and how often you want to make a scheduled buy.

WealthSimple Trade Pros & Cons

Pros
  • The best trading platform for beginners.
  • Easy and fast account opening.
  • Excellent mobile App.
  • User-friendly for first-time investors.
  • Easily buy and sell.
  • Commission-free trading.
  • No account minimums: Start trading with as little as $1.
  • Fractional buy.
  • Recurring buy.
  • 4% interest rates in cash accounts.
  • Deposit speed is fast.

Cons
  • High FX fee: Trading U.S. stocks or ETFs will charge you a 1.5% foreign exchange fee.
  • Stock quotes are not updated in real time. There is a 15-minute delay.

My favorite features at Wealthsimple

  • Fractional Buy
Fractions mean that fractional shares of stock can be set to be purchased.

For example, as shown in the picture below,  I set to buy TSM stock listed on the US stock exchange at $95.97 USD per share and set to buy $25. It means I bought 0.2605 shares.

You can purchase fractional shares in any ETFs and stocks, such as the S&P500 index ETF, Nasdaq 100 index ETF, etc. 

Or if you are a fan of Us Stocks, such as Apple, Costco, Tesla, Amazon, etc. So even if you don't have enough cash to buy 1 share at a time, with fractional shares, you can own a piece of these companies.




  • Recurring Buy

Recurring helps you make a habit out of investing by automatically purchasing on a specific schedule that you choose. I set up weekly buying S&P500 index fund. This strategy is called Dollar-Cost Averaging which is a great way for long-term investors.

You can choose to have direct weekly or monthly recurring buys from your bank savings or chequing account. 

I'm setting up an automatic recurring buy with EQ Bank

  • WealthSimple Cash
Offer 4% interest rates with no minimum balance in the cash account.

  • WealthSimple Tax
File your income tax returns at 100% Free charge.


Very useful blog. A lot of articles for you to gain knowledge about investing.



If the company business is doing well the stock will eventually follow - Peter Lynch


Wish you a happy investment.


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