Questrade offer MetaTrader (MT4)

Next step - What Canadian broker has MT4 and is covered under CIPF, and accepts USA or other countries?

I know that Questrade is going to be introducing MT4 in August some time.

UPDATE - They have MT4 now, here is the link



FXCM uses a company called Friedburg Direct, and the web site claims to offer MT4. I've sent an email to clarify, since I checked 3 months ago they did not have MT4 accounts in Canada (went to UK for MT4). I have a small FXCM account in UK. Here is the MT4 FXCM page.

I've looked at a bunch of brokers over the past week, I always look to see what country they are in. I found one in Mauritius (HotForex). I've been there. I wouldn't go with that broker with your money!! The broker would have to be in one of the large stable countries (with a half decent auditor!!!)

Alternatively, I'm looking at TradingStation II and Strategy Trader both offered by FXCM. I'm not using EA's except for TipsterTrendlines to place pending order. It's not an auto trading strategy, it's atool that does all the grunt work for my manual trades. So depending on what the next 2 months holds, I might go to that platform. After being hit by both MF Global AND PFG, I'm ONLY going with CIPF firms. There are to many f'n crooks in the finance world. The Canadian finance sector including banks are well regulated and offer a solid foundation, the credit crises really never screwed up our banks and real estate in Canada, not sure if anyone outside of Canada realises that. 

So, I'm not saying that anyone should jump to Canadian firms, just that from my experience, any firm covered under IIROC and CIPF is well worth looking at in your comparison.

IIROC and CIPF

Here is some information that might help out the person wishing to open an investment account in Canada. 

Protection and regulation are really two different things, depending on what you mean when you say “protection”. I define protection (for the purposes of this post) to be protection of my personnel funds in the case of another MF Global or PFG Best.  Even if the regulator does not do their job (put your hand up American regulators!!!!) you will still get your funds returned to you. 

I was part of the MF Global non-sense, got every penny back, and it didn’t take very long either. I had an MF Global account that was registered in Canada.

Definitions

IIROC - Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

CIPF - Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

IIROC is the Canadian Regulator.  CIPF Members are Dealer Members of IIROC.

Mission Statement: To contribute to the security and confidence of customers of Canadian investment dealers by maintaining adequate resources to return assets to eligible customers in cases where a Member becomes insolvent.

In the unlikely event that the Member you are dealing with becomes insolvent, CIPF will ensure the securities, cash and other property that are held in your account are returned to you in accordance with our Coverage Policy. 
Investment dealer insolvency doesn’t happen very often.  In fact, since CIPF’s inception in 1969 there have been only 18 Member insolvencies. CIPF has made payments of $36 million, net of recoveries, and no eligible customers have suffered a loss of property.

So, for anyone outside of Canada (except AUSA residents), take a look at this page.... it tells you what and who is covered under CIPF.

http://www.cipf.ca/Public/CIPFCoverage/ ... olicy.aspx

Does it matter if I do not live in Canada, or if I am not a Canadian citizen or a Canadian resident?

No. CIPF coverage does not depend upon residency or citizenship. CIPF coverage is available to you when you open an account with a CIPF Member.

If you are living in the USA, forget it.  The U.S regulators are soooo terrible that they demand your money stays inside the U.S.  Imagine if this rule didn't exist, there would be a whole lot of American funds being transfer outside the country.  Other countries respect the regulator so they don't open accounts for Americans.  I have money sitting in the bankruptcy case with PFG – so I don’t have anything good to say about the US financial system. 

Free Online Charting

Here is a list of online charting applications.  They all run on your browser, chartingstation can also run on your desktop.  I use the first one listed since it was the first one online and I’m used to it now.  If I was to start fresh, I think I would go with chartingstation as they have less advertising on the screen real estate.

Take a few minutes and explore each of them. They are all free, free data from the BATSA exchange, meaning I wouldn’t trade intraday off those quotes but it gives you a great idea of where the market is. I mostly use it for my long term holding check, and to look at the US dollar index on the weekends.

In the end, pick one and stay with it. 

http://www.freestockcharts.com/

by Worden brother.  Although I like this, its heavy advertising and a push to upgrade or go with there platform TC 2000.  I stay with the free version as it does what I need.

https://www.tradingview.com

Community based, tons of features. 

http://www.chartingstation.com

• Multi-screen end-of-day stock charting software
  7 chart types (Candle, Point & Figure, Renko, Kagi, Heikin-Ashi, Line, High-Low)
  16 drawing tools (Fibonacci tools, Gann tools, Channels, Andrew's Pitchfork, Text, Basic Shapes)
  70+ indicators and chart transformations
  Access 3 free stock data providers (Yahoo!, Google, MSN Money)
  Load custom Comma Separated Value (CSV) files
  Multi-platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
  Use from your desktop or web browser