A better way to buy stocks and exchange-traded funds is at your disposal if you’re a client of Canada’s best digital broker.
Fractional trading of shares and exchange-traded funds is one of those breakthroughs in DIY investing that come along every five to 10 years or so. By jumping on this trend ahead of many competitors, TD Direct Investing cinched top spot in the 2025 Globe and Mail Digital Brokerage ranking.
Full credit to Wealthsimple and Interactive Brokers for being first with fractional shares, which allow people to invest more efficiently by putting all their money to work immediately. Instead of gathering enough money to buy one or more full shares, you simply invest what you have on hand. No more leftover cash sitting in your account earning nothing.
TD’s introduction of what it calls partial shares is almost as noteworthy because big bank-owned brokers typically resist or delay change. Offering partial shares is a welcome add-on to TD’s strong efforts to supply DIY investors with the tools they need to succeed.
Elsewhere in the ranking, Questrade and National Bank Direct Brokerage have pushed their way to the upper tier by giving clients both zero-cost trading and a strong platform for managing their investments. After much-needed website renos, RBC Direct Investing and Scotia iTrade are also worth a look.
TD takes top spot, along with its sidekick, the TD Easy Trade app, which offers 50 free stock trades per year and unlimited zero-commission trading of TD’s family of ETFs. Note: You can’t buy non-TD ETFs through Easy Trade.
Some aspects of DIY investing that TD nails include a tight summary of your portfolio on login, including asset mix, one-year performance and relevant earnings, dividend and rating announcements. When ordering a stock or ETF, you have the option to specify the number of shares you want to buy or the amount you want to invest. Throughout, TD keeps things clear and uncluttered.
A total of 12 brokers were included in this year’s ranking. On the watchlist for future inclusion are two slick foreign players, Moomoo and Webull. Can they can make headway in the DIY investing marketplace against powerhouses like TD, representing the power of the big banks, and Wealthsimple, an innovation leader?
Evaluations in the Globe digital brokerage ranking are based on more than 100 factors, broken down into five categories: Convenience and security, cost, the investing experience, tools and services for retirees. Here’s a rundown on how the brokers in the ranking compare:
Owner: Bank of Montreal
Grade: B-
InvestorLine is an example of bank-owned brokers with old-school pricing, specifically trading commissions just below $10 for stocks and exchange-traded funds. If you pay top price, you have to ask where the value is. InvestorLine delivers for the most part, but without the sparkle needed to be in the front rank in this group. A big plus is the menu of 108 commission-free ETFs from the BMO, iShares and Vanguard families.
Owner: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Grade: B
With its $6.95 commission, Investor’s Edge is the low-cost leader among big banks that charge clients to trade stocks and ETFs. You got ambience to match that lower cost in the past, but no longer. The website is well sorted, and the app is more comprehensive than most in what you can do. If having a deep library of equity research is your thing, Investor’s Edge scores well in this category. Also noteworthy is a Trade Ideas page (look under Quotes and Research) that identifies stocks and ETFs according to various themes.
Owner: CI Financial
Grade: C-
Hear me out on this: Take $5,000 and set up an account at CI Direct Trading to get free access to its portfolio analysis tool, powered by Wealthscope. CI Direct’s heyday as a low-cost disruptor is over, but this tool is something special if you care about diversification, risk, fees and more. You can analyze accounts at CI Direct, or manually replicate portfolios held elsewhere. Minimum trade commissions of $1.99 and zero-cost ETF purchases are other attractions. Normal commissions apply when you sell an ETF. That initial $5,000 deposit at CI isn’t random – at that level, you stop paying a $24.95 quarterly admin fee.
Owner: Desjardins Group
Grade: C
This broker’s app is nicely executed – clean and full of useful functions. The website is fine, if you judge by the standards of 2015. A reminder that some brokers are putting more work into their apps than their websites. What really sets Desjardins apart is zero commissions for stocks and ETFs.
Owner: IBG Holdings LLC
Grade: B+
As ever, this ranking is aimed straight at mainstream investors rather than traders. IB fits into the overlap between these two worlds. Fees are low, both in trading costs and forex. IB also offers fractional shares, with the option of market or limit orders; other brokers offered only market orders for fractional trades in early 2025. A thought if you trade a lot: Try benchmarking your current broker against IB.
National Bank Direct Brokerage
Owner: National Bank of Canada
Grade: B+
NBDB is the zero-commission broker that best meets the needs of investors who want not just a platform for buying and selling investments, but also tools for monitoring a portfolio and researching stocks and ETFs. Both the website and app are lean and clean, and there’s plenty of Morningstar and National Bank Financial research on stocks to work through. The addition of the Wealthscope portfolio analysis tool rounds out NBDB’s offering nicely.
Owner: Aviso Wealth
Grade: B+
The flat commission of $8.75 is old-school pricing. But, you get a lot. Start with a slick website that welcomes you on login with a dashboard with plentiful information to help you stay on top of your portfolio. Also, a good app, a strong analysis tool called Portfolio Score and upwards of 140 commission-free ETFs. Qtrade lives on top floor of this ranking year by year because it’s never complacent. Accordingly, fractional trading is targeted for late 2025.
Owner: Questrade Financial Group
Grade: A-
In case you missed its commercials during the Super Bowl broadcast, Questrade has adopted zero-cost trading for stocks and ETFs. Gone is the minimum $4.95 commission, and 99 per cent gone are the electronic communications network (ECN) fees formerly applied to a wider selection of trades. Beyond costs, Questrade offers a slick, efficient platform for managing a portfolio. Even veteran investors will appreciate the clean, simple interface for placing an order for a stock by app or online. Fractional trading, a natural add-on to Questrade’s zero-commission move, is cued for 2025.
Owner: Royal Bank of Canada
Grade: B+
This season’s most improved player. Log into the RBC DI website for clients and you get a portfolio overview with asset mix, projected income for the month and recent events driving your holdings. There’s also a quick-link to RBC’s excellent Portfolio Analyzer tool. More info on portfolio performance would be helpful – unrealized gains/losses are shown, but with no timeframe. Kudos to RBC for trying to raise its game in making its website accessible and useful. Still needed is an acknowledgement of the declining fee trend in DIY investing. Some commission-free ETFs would be a start.
Owner: Bank of Nova Scotia
Grade: B
Scotia iTrade has gone full app – the long-awaited, much-needed website redesign borrows heavily from the open, airy layout used for mobile phone and tablet apps. Mature investors may take a while to appreciate what Scotia’s radical redesign, but young investors will feel right at home. Carried over are perks like a strong research library and a list of 120-plus ETFs that can be traded commission-free. It’s an offset to the standard stock and ETF commission of $9.99.
Owner: Toronto-Dominion Bank
Grade: A+
TD is Canada’s best digital broker overall, and it’s also the most adroit among the bank-owned firms that dominate the DIY investing business. You can see this in the introduction of what TD calls partial share trading for TD Direct Investing and TD Easy Trade. The significance of partial trading is that clients can invest every cent they have on hand in a stock or ETF, without leftover cash. This is the future of digital investing and TD is so far the only bank-owned broker to offer it. Otherwise, TD fits you like your best pair of jeans. Comfortable, and just the thing for most purposes. And, yes, TD finally added first home savings accounts.
Owner: Ownership includes Power Corp. of Canada
Grade: B+
Wealthsimple is graded not as a pure broker, but as a digital financial app that seamlessly combines zero-commission stock and ETF trading along with managed portfolios, crypto investing, banking and mortgages. Research and portfolio-monitoring services are minimal at best, and there’s a $10 monthly fee for U.S.-dollar accounts unless you have a six-figure amount of business with the company. The essence of Wealthsimple is its empowerment of clients to manage their finances, not just their investments.
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