Questrade is a financial service provider with a democratically priced online stock trading platform for its Canadian based investors. They have a solid platform of trading tools for their customers, competitive commissions, and other options such as trading physical Gold. Questrade is one of the fastest growing Canadian brokers due to great customer service, direct access technology, and quick trade execution.

Types of accounts

They offer several types of accounts:

• Margin Accounts (e.g. Individual, Informal Trust, Business)
• Registered (e.g. TFSA, RRSP, RESP)
• Forex (FX) and Contract For Difference (CFD) Trading
• Managed Investing

Commission

Questrade offers a well-crafted industry unique ‘democratic pricing’ stock trading commission: 1¢ per share with a minimum charge of $4.95/trade and a ceiling maximum commission charge of $9.95 — ideal for long-term investors. Active traders (or anyone at any time) have the alternative option of 1¢ per share (1¢ minimum / $6.95 maximum), or a $4.95 flat stock commission charge — ideal for high volume share trades. Options investing for these active users come with an attractively low $6.95 + 75¢ per contract. And the process of enrolling into this alternative program simply involves subscribing to one of Questrade’s several advanced market data plans. This should be glanced at again! It is not a typo! Questrade offers the cheapest trades in all of Canada. Their price point is so impressive that it actually encourages new and/or small investors to jump in and take part in the investment game while also enticing disgruntled active traders of other brokerage firms to transfer in (at no charge). They make it abundantly clear that they don’t charge setup fees, annual fees, nor inactivity fees* on any of their services which is a welcome change to the industry norm. However, for those looking for more of an actively managed portfolio touch there is a new specialty service they now offer at a nominal annual fee. More on this later.

Platforms

Questrade has spent much of 2013 focused on the roll out and improvement of its trading platform experience. The flagship trading platform is their Questrade IQ platform which delivers a trader-friendly interface that includes charting as well as complex options trading. IQ essential and IQ web are their web-based platforms and the IQ edge is a desktop based platform. The more advanced platforms, such as IQ web and IQ edge do require some kind of data package in order to fully utilize the platform features. As such, while the platform may be ‘free’ the data packages/data fees are not. For very active traders, however, market data fees are typical for advanced platforms.

In addition to the computer based versions of IQ, there is also a mobile version – IQ Mobile, which is available on iOS and Android systems.

Good things about Questrade

• Cheap, cheap trades.  $4.95 trading fees for trades with 495 shares or less – maximum $9.95 fees for trades with more shares.  ETFs can be bought for free!
• Ability to hold US$ in rrsp account.  If you sell a US$ security in a rrsp – almost every other broker charges 1% ore more to switch it to CDN$ and then another 1%+ to go back to US$.
• Good trading platform.  I only used the free platform (Webtrader) and I really liked it.  It is very simple and doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that other platforms have.  Real time quotes is the only feature I need.
• Excellent service.  I had no problems setting up accounts and doing trades, moving money etc.  They have an online chat function which I never used but apparently is pretty good.  I either phoned (very quick response) or sent email.  Both methods worked fine for me.
• No account fees whatsoever.
• Low balances. Minimum account balance to open an account is $1000 and you only need $250 to keep an account open.
• All account types available.  Open, RRSP, RESP, RRIF – you name it, they have it.
• Mutual funds – they will rebate up to 1% of the management fee back to the investor.  Read more about the Questrade mutual fund rebate.

>> Click Here to Visit Questrade Official Website

The trading mechanics in the forex market is quite similar to stocks in that prices fluctuate based on supply and demand, bid and asking prices. The major differences between them is the number of trading alternatives available. Forex market has very few compared to the thousands found in the stock market. The majority of forex traders focus their efforts on several different currency pairs, which include EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF and commodity pairs, USD/CAD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD. This makes currency trading easier to follow instead of having to pick between thousands of stocks to find the best value, the only thing forex traders need to do is to keep up to date on the economic and political news of these countries.

One of the Broker that we highly recommend to start your journey in Forex investment is ForexTime. ForexTime or FXTM, is a Forex broker that was launched in 2011. The company’s focus from the beginning was to provide high-quality services and a trading environment to its customers. FXTM is an international CFD and forex broker, regulated by the UK FCA, CySEC of Cyprus and the Mauritian FSC.

FXTM established itself as a leading broker for emerging and frontier markets. Traders get upgraded MT4/MT5 trading platforms, a proprietary copy trading service, and quality research and education. Forextime also delivers one of the best commission-based Forex pricing environments.

As account opening only takes a short time, and customer support is helpful and reliable, feel free to try FXTM.

In a declining stock market, it is only with extreme ingenuity and luck that an investor can make profit. It can be difficult to short-sell in the US stock market because of strict rules and regulations. On the other hand, forex offers the opportunity to profit in both rising and declining markets easily because with every trade, you are buying and selling at the same time, and short-selling is, therefore, a part of every trade. Forex market is so liquid, traders are not required to wait for an uptick before they are allowed to enter into a short position, as in the rule in the stock market.

As the liquidity of the forex market is high, margins are low and leverage is hight. It is just not possible to find such low margin rates in the stock market, most margin traders in the stock market need at least half of the value of their investment available in their margin accounts, whereas forex traders need as little as few percents. Commissions in the stock market tend to be much higher than in the forex market. Traditional stock brokers ask for commission fees on top of the fees that have to be paid to the exchange. While forex brokers take only the spread as their fee for each trade.

As for investors like you and me, day trading in stocks and forex share a lot of the same stresses – being constantly plugged in, watching news and price action and so on.

When people refer to Forex trading being riskier or more difficult than stock trading, they usually mean that it is more difficult than buying and holding stocks (apples to oranges comparison).

Forex trading might involve more time sensitive decisions rather than a single analysis and then making a long-term investment. However, this is a bit untrue as fundamental forex traders may keep a position for weeks or months, checking it rarely. They have this luxury because they usually use less margin than forex day traders.

In summary, forex trading has better opportunity being 24/5, simplicity as the limited number of major currency pairs, higher liquidity over stock markets, and if you are in the margin game, the potential is way higher than a stock market.

Again, advertising my favorite forex investment tool that gained me thousandssss. You could consider or continue using your own tools if you already have one.

Forex – the term on its own sounds complicated, some people directly relates it to risks and dangerous. While, in reality, just like any other forms of investment, it could be dangerous only if you have little knowledge.

You can simply be a long term investor, or you can sit and watch the market every day looking at your profit growing. There are enough strategies out there to meet any investment goal.

Simple forex trading system is following the daily or weekly trend. Review the charts and find a trend that seems well supported and get in. Set a reasonable stop and plan out a target. You will find this strategy easy as you don’t need to watch the market constantly, you can trade when you have time.

You can also choose to do day trading as forex market is always moving 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. Forex market is always moving at least a little. You can pick and choose your time depending on what you like to trade. Most day trading strategies revolve around forex technical analysis, if you have sharp eye and a plan, you can catch it and take some profit from it.

Some may have more old-fashioned approach to investment. You may prefer to invest in something you understand better rather than looking for a signal on their chart. Fundamental forex trading will work best for this category. You follow the news for several countries and play the countries with strengthening economic trends, against the ones with weakening economic trends. You look for how things shape up over the long term while you shall learn to understand the economic reports and compare them to other countries.

While Forex may sound complicated, anyone will have the ability to learn with patience and from mistake. Skills can definitely gained over time, it takes some persistence. It may frustrate some people in the beginning, you need to step back, keep an eye on the big picture and trade small, at least at the beginning.

I started my trading from this site, it is incredibly easy to use and they provide bonus as an encouragement. Feel free to explore XM trading here.