# Norbert Gambit at TD



## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

I performed a gambit last week and was informed that TD now charge the full commission for the sell transaction. I was told that it was now a "policy".

Anyone have more info ? Is the big green clamping down on norbert gambit ?


----------



## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

It's always been their official policy. Some agents followed it strictly to the letter, some didn't.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

it's still the same story. Some do, some don't.

(aside to larry: stick with your green friends)


----------



## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> it's still the same story. Some do, some don't.
> 
> (aside to larry: stick with your green friends)


I had this information from one of my so called green friend. The idiot also messed the gambit and had to revert the trades (he sold in the same CAD account instead of USD, duhhhh). He credited me the fee's but rambled about "changed in the policy yadadada".

I have another gambit scheduled next week, i will try with another rep and see how it go.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

larry81 said:


> The idiot also messed the gambit and had to revert the trades (he sold in the same CAD account instead of USD, duhhhh).



actually he could have gotten that to work perfectly, without reversion or cancelling, if he'd sold in CAD account but specified US market.

all he would have had to do after that action was CFO the completed sell order over to the US account.

hint: it's the markham resource persons who are the most draconian about charging the full sell commish. Some of them sound like terrorists lol. Do you have 800 numbers to the other 2 call centres, in ottawa & montreal?


----------



## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> Do you have 800 numbers to the other 2 call centres, in ottawa & montreal?


I have what used to be the "president" 800 number but now seem to be a general number. Send me back the Ottawa & MTL 800 please


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

here's what i "suspect" is the big green policy at present ...

they're not going to do anything overt & drastic such as changing the policy to a uniform full phone commission for all representatives. Not overnight. That would tick off too many clients.

instead, they've mostly trained the markham resource persons - these are the supervisors - that the answer has to be Full Phone Commish. So all the young representatives, plus the representatives who are not sure what to do, are told Full Phone Commish when they consult an RP.

meanwhile, the old guard - the more senior representatives who were the ones more likely to offer a web commish in the first place - are gradually disappearing through attrition. Eventually they will all be gone & the problem will be solved. All the reps will be charging Full Phone Commish for a gambit sell.

the beauty of this strategy is that the big green never comes across as the bad guy. In effect, the clients are busy training each other, while the big green sits back & does next to nothing! how comic is that.

my suggestion as always to anyone who regularly needs a currency conversion: get a BMO or an RY or an interactive brokers account, if only as a backup account. Everything online, instantly. No phoning required.


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> my suggestion as always to anyone who regularly needs a currency conversion: get a BMO or an RY or an interactive brokers account, if only as a backup account. Everything online, instantly. No phoning required.


It is more than high time that "ease of currency gambit" is included as a criteria in brokerage reviews and rankings.
Such as the ones done by Rob Carrick for the G&M.
They already include currency conversion, but that is the regular online instant conversion using brokerage's published rates - not the gambit.
It should be one of the higher weighted criteria for the rankings.


----------



## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> It is more than high time that "ease of currency gambit" is included as a criteria in brokerage reviews and rankings.
> Such as the ones done by Rob Carrick for the G&M.
> They already include currency conversion, but that is the regular online instant conversion using brokerage's published rates - not the gambit.
> It should be one of the higher weighted criteria for the rankings.


agreed, these are really some of the only features separating the bunch anyway.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> It is more than high time that "ease of currency gambit" is included as a criteria in brokerage reviews and rankings.
> Such as the ones done by Rob Carrick for the G&M




lol but do you think that rob carrick really knows how to do a currency arb/gambit pair trade at every broker each:

for several years now - since 2010, actually - cmf has led on this issue. Helping newcomers avoid brokers' unnecessary FX fees is one of the strengths of this forum.

even PWL copied the gambit idea from here


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

here's a nervy gambit strategy to try at the TD or another broker such as scotia or cibc. The idea will appeal to the scrappier among currency gambit traders, ie those who enjoy an argument. I myself don't like to lose time & energy arguing, so i've never tried this. If i would personally need to exchange currencies, me i would just retreat to my BMO backup account & quietly get the job done with the greatest of ease.

but for scrappy currency arbitrageurs, the strategy at a broker whose online platform doesn't permit the sell side goes like this:

1) buy the interlisted stock on toronto in canadian account. Let's say we're doing RY, so buy 500 RY shares. A cheap online commission.

2) immediately, sell the 500 RY shares online in canadian account, but this time specify US market. Be sure to do exactly this. Sell in canadian account but choose US market. Another cheap online commission.

3) the very same day, phone the broker & ask him to CFO the sell order over to the US account. Notice that this phone call *must* be placed the same day, otherwise the broker's FX system will convert the USD price received into CAD, with the usual FX fee, during the night.

4) an argument could break out over step No. 3 because any smart representative is going to understand that the client is, in fact, arbing a currency gambit & moreover the client is trying to avoid the broker's FX fees on the sell side.

however - for scrappy parties who like to argue - the clincher is that the broker has no legal right whatsoever to stop a client from doing exactly the above. Such a client is within every existing regulation. No broker can refuse a client's legitimate instruction.

good luck to any who try this manoeuvre & be sure to keep us posted. If many parties try this strategy at the big green, i predict that it won't take TD too long to figure out what we're doing .each:


----------



## vitaminsarenecessary (Dec 31, 2014)

I have a question I'm really confused about.

So now TD charge this phone commission. Does it mean that I should stop gambit and just convert cad to usd in branch with teller? It's still cheaper to gambit if say I would like to convert say 30k of cad right?


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

vitaminsarenecessary said:


> I have a question I'm really confused about.
> 
> So now TD charge this phone commission. Does it mean that I should stop gambit and just convert cad to usd in branch with teller? It's still cheaper to gambit if say I would like to convert say 30k of cad right?



vitamins it's normal to feel a bit confused because, au fond, the concept is quite sophisticated to grasp. There are many who don't bother. So please take your time to learn carefully. Fortunately the opportunities are never going to disappear, so time is not critical in the learning stage.

yes, $30k is worth gambit trading. Usually we suggest that anything above $10k is worth the pair of commissions - 9.99 to buy & 9.99 to sell.

right now the situation at the big green is "flou" - ie kind of confused. You might stumble upon a representative who will spontaneously offer you the web commish. Or you might stumble upon one who won't.

my suggestion would be to keep searching for a rep who does wash windows. Say good-bye to reps who don't do windows except at a high price (btw the TD knows this is going on, that is, they know clients are trying several reps.)

what i described above is a slightly different strategy, but really only applicable to scrappy-experienced-traders. It's an alternative for them if they keep stumbling upon representatives who won't wash windows.

if you have an actual trade in mind & feel inclined to share a bit, we'll help you.


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> here's a nervy gambit strategy to try at the TD or another broker such as scotia or cibc.
> ...
> 2) immediately, sell the 500 RY shares online in canadian account, but this time specify US market. Be sure to do exactly this. Sell in canadian account but choose US market. Another cheap online commission.


In the case of Scotia iTrade, the above can indeed work - but only in a non registered account.
There is no USD side in registered accounts at Scotia iTrade.
So, in registered account, as soon as you sell anything in US market, it immediately deposits the proceeds in CAD$ by auto-converting using FX-fee rates.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> In the case of Scotia iTrade, the above can indeed work - but only in a non registered account.
> There is no USD side in registered accounts at Scotia iTrade.
> So, in registered account, as soon as you sell anything in US market it immediately converts to CAD$.



i see your point re registered accounts.

but doesn't scotia have the same feature as the old TD mono-currency registered accounts? clients in the old RRSP & TFSA accounts at the big green used to be able to gambit effortlessly online, instantly, 2 cheap online commish, no phone calls, no talk, no trauma.

fwiw my theory was that the TD rrsp system had been built so that it "thought" every securitiy was a canadian security. Therefore it meekly bought an interlisted & sold the same interlisted a split second later in US market ... because it "thought" the client was day-trading, something like that.

you don't have that feature at scotia? seems strange, because they do allow US securities, no? i mean, you could hold merck or apple or google in RRSP at scotia, if you wanted?


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> you don't have that feature at scotia? seems strange, because they do allow US securities, no? i mean, you could hold merck or apple or google in RRSP at scotia, if you wanted?


Yes, you can.
You can buy and sell interlisted stocks in registered accounts - however, every time you buy in US$, it will auto-convert from your CAD$ cash balance.
Similarly, as soon as sell trade on US exchange is executed, it will deposit the proceeds auto-converted into CAD$ at the official brokerage FX rates (incl. embedded FX fee).
Investor will never "see" the US$ in the intermediate stage i.e. after sell execution but before conversion.

Only caveat to this is the "USD Friendly RRSP", which simply applies a better conversion rate.
But proceeds will still be auto-converted to CAD.


----------



## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

vitaminsarenecessary said:


> I have a question I'm really confused about.
> 
> So now TD charge this phone commission. Does it mean that I should stop gambit and just convert cad to usd in branch with teller? It's still cheaper to gambit if say I would like to convert say 30k of cad right?


Not at all, the next logical course of actions if your broker refuse to perform a cheap Gambit is to do the "long" 3 days DLR/DLR.U conversion


----------



## livewell (Dec 1, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> lol but do you think that rob carrick really knows how to do a currency arb/gambit pair trade at every broker each:
> 
> for several years now - since 2010, actually - cmf has led on this issue. Helping newcomers avoid brokers' unnecessary FX fees is one of the strengths of this forum.
> 
> even PWL copied the gambit idea from here


Not to diminish the threads here, but to be fair it is the FWF forum (financialwisdomforum.org) that has led this issue. Norbert Schlenker one of the founders and an active poster at FWF is the originator of the Norbert Gambit.


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> you don't have that feature at scotia? seems strange, because they do allow US securities, no? i mean, you could hold merck or apple or google in RRSP at scotia, if you wanted?





HaroldCrump said:


> Yes, you can.
> You can buy and sell interlisted stocks in registered accounts - however, every time you buy in US$, it will auto-convert from your CAD$ cash balance.
> Similarly, as soon as sell trade on US exchange is executed, it will deposit the proceeds auto-converted into CAD$ at the official brokerage FX rates (incl. embedded FX fee).
> Investor will never "see" the US$ in the intermediate stage i.e. after sell execution but before conversion.


Here is an illustration of what I was talking about.
This is a screen print from my RRSP A/C

Here I am proposing to sell 100 shares of Agrium Inc. from the CAD RRSP A/C on the US exchange.

Note how it shows the bid/ask, commission, etc. in USD.

But on the last line, it shows that my proceeds will be in CAD.
Also note the warning at the top of the screen.
(Ignore the warning about the next business day).


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

livewell said:


> Not to diminish the threads here, but to be fair it is the FWF forum (financialwisdomforum.org) that has led this issue. Norbert Schlenker one of the founders and an active poster at FWF is the originator of the Norbert Gambit.




not that one can see. What has FWF ever done to pioneer or advance currency arbitrage in recent years, other than to ape & copy posters on cmf?

as i've posted before, some clients at the big green were arbing currencies long before the luminaries on FWF ever appeared.

i myself was first clued in by a senior TD representative a very long time ago. He saw how i was arbing options & he told me how some folks were arbitraging stocks. This was long before mister schlenker tried, perhaps somewhat audaciously, to affix his own name to the process, which in fact is nothing more than arbitrage, a trading art that has been widely practiced for many hundreds of years. Has been continually practiced ever since the rise of the great european merchant banks in the early renaissance.

i agree that there was a flurry of gambit trading just over a decade ago. Some were doing it, then, by shorting first in one currency, then buying to cover in the other currency, then journalling over.

the brokers put a stop to this practice because they did not want actual shorting to occur. Brokers have only a limited number of shares available at their loan posts for shorting by clients, they don't want currency arbitrageurs sideswiping those shares into limbo for 3 entire days.

the modern arbitrage techniques that have developed - years after the schlenker era at FWF - do not involve strict shorting per se. Brokers are not required to report these contemporary transactions as "short" sales to the exchanges, as they must for true short statistics.

so i deny that anyone in this or the preceding century was ever a "founder" of currency arbitrage. I continue to maintain that this is an arbitrage strategy completely within the mainstream of ancient arbitrage practice. I further maintain that it is presumptuous for anyone to pretend that they "founded" or invented this practice.


----------



## livewell (Dec 1, 2013)

humble_pie said:


> not that one can see. What has FWF ever done to pioneer or advance currency arbitrage in recent years, other than to ape & copy posters on cmf?
> 
> as i've posted before, some clients at the big green were arbing currencies long before the luminaries on FWF ever appeared.


I won't post a link as I don't know if the owners of CMF consider FWF to be competition and do not want to upset them, but the Norbert's Gambit thread on FWF is 1061 posts long, and has postings as recently as last month. The first post in that thread is from Norbert (in 2005) that summarizes the NG procedure from his and others postings to a previous forum (TWB?) posted in 2001 (NG pre-dates the start of FWF and CMF). I don't think Norbert would argue that this is just currency arbitrage, but it was his posting to the (TWB) forum in 2001 that made it available to retail investors at discount brokers.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

livewell said:


> ... it was his posting to the (TWB) forum in 2001 that made it available to retail investors at discount brokers.



no, as i've posted, there were enough clients arbitraging currencies long before 2001 for the discount brokers to have distinctly noticed the practice. Again, as i've posted, i myself was taught by a discount broker representative well before 2001. No one had even remotely heard of anyone with your friend's name. Everyone recognized the practice as good old arbitrage.

do you think arbitrageurs were not arbing canadian stocks since the middle/late years of the previous century? i'm wondering where is your sense of history ... 

i've read the historic gambit material from the early years of the last decade. May i repeat, it's presumptuous for anyone to try to affix his name as inventor & "founder" of a arbitrage practice that pre-dated himself by many centuries.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> Here is an illustration of what I was talking about.
> This is a screen print from my RRSP A/C
> 
> Here I am proposing to sell 100 shares of Agrium Inc. from the CAD RRSP A/C on the US exchange.
> ...




i'm so glad you posted your info & graphic.

this looks very much like what we used to see at TD, even the warning is almost identical. The trick is to accept the warning but continue anyhow to sell those precious interlisted mothers in "US market," while also selling out of the canadian account.

you see, i tend to believe that scotia platform is built something like the former TD monocurrency rrsp accounts.

to the clients of both brokers, looking at the web platform, a just-completed USD market sell looks already locked up in CAD. But in reality, it's not locked, not quite yet. The situation will stay fluid through the rest of the afternoon. Overnight the system will update & only then will it actually apply the FX fees.

during the same day of the trade, any licensed rep can enter the registered account & carry out quite a lot of manoeuvres. For example, he can flip the USD proceeds into US money market fund, with no FX fee. That's what the TD's "autowash" procedure used to do. In reality, it was a manual procedure carried out by live TD reps, working afterhours in a call centre office, treating each & every client USD transaction in rrsp or tfsa by hand.

(i have to say they were incredibly good at it. But before the TD had autowash, we clients used to do our own laundry. My black joke to myself used to be that TD invented autowash by their own staff because we, the clients, were making too many mistakes on our own, so the big green figured Hey, we can do this more accurately & then we won't have to clean up the clients' messes.)

going back to scotia, if you can sell an interlisted security in US market in a scotia rrsp, by overriding the warning as above, then most likely a licensed rep can CFO the order to the US side of the account & he can also immediately park the sell proceeds in a USD MMF. This is the autowash procedure, except that here you're doing your own laundry, with a little rinse by the rep.

of course, it's not obligatory to buy US MMF. Sometimes an investor has an actual US stock purchase in mind, so all he will have left over after that purchase are a few dollars in USD. These will normally be too few dollars to make it into MMF, so this small amount of USD cash will get swept up by the overnight FX conversion & it will arrive back in CAD the next morning.


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> you see, i tend to believe that scotia platform is built something like the former TD monocurrency rrsp accounts.
> 
> to the clients of both brokers, looking at the web platform, a just-completed USD market sell looks already locked up in CAD. But in reality, it's not locked, not quite yet. The situation will stay fluid through the rest of the afternoon. Overnight the system will update & only then will it actually apply the FX fees.


Interesting...I never would have thought the proceeds are available for intra-day manipulation & "washing".

If this does work, this would be a major step forward in the gambit story.
Hitherto, everyone has believed it is not possible to gambit in Scotia iTrade style monocurrency registered accounts.

I will give this a try sometime.
Don't want to get rid of my AGU shares at this time, but I will find some other inter-listed stock I don't mind getting rid of.
I suppose the worst case is the reps will say no, and I will end up getting CAD$ with the 3.5% FX fee.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

how about a task? thank goodness you are one who can carry out a test to perfection.

what i'd like is for you to do all the laundry yourself, to see if scotia rrsp behaves the way the former TD monocurrency rrsp platform used to behave.

- in scotia RRSP, sell a small number of an interlisted stock. Specify sell in US market.

be sure you write down the share price & the commish in USD, because after these numbers flash once during order preparation, you won't see them again (from these numbers you can work out the net USD proceeds.)

the website will likely show you proceeds in CAD, but ignore this info for the time being. Next, set up & send an order to buy a US security in USD, on US market, in this RRSP account. Order can be something as simple as a US MMF. If scotia doesn't have one, TD's will do (it's TDB 166.)

if your order fills, note USD details carefully as they flash on the screen, as above. If order fills, i rather imagine the website will show you the executed fill in CAD. You'll have only your scribbled notes to tell you what really happened.

if your order fills, double-check with a licensed rep to make sure that you do own the USD security, the system will still likely be able to show the rep the USD purchase price.

if all goes well, you will have to congratulate yourself. You will have proved that instant, online gambit trading is possible in RRSP at scotia! just the way it used to work at TD. Of course, now that TD has gone to the new dual-currency rrsp platform, instant online gambits are no longer possible. As with the margin accounts, TD clients now have to phone & ask for a rep-handled sell side.


----------



## vitaminsarenecessary (Dec 31, 2014)

humble_pie - thanks so much for explaining this I think I have an better idea about how it works now.

Yes I am thinking about converting about 30k of CAD to USD and purchase S&P Indexed ETF.

I'm opening an tddi account very soon and I have some savings and am planning to build a diversified portfolio with quality equity and bonds to achieve long term goals using tddi which is why I'm interested in gambit using tddi


----------



## avrex (Nov 14, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> but for scrappy currency arbitrageurs, the strategy at a broker whose online platform doesn't permit the sell side goes like this:
> 
> 1) buy the interlisted stock on toronto in canadian account. Let's say we're doing RY, so buy 500 RY shares. A cheap online commission.
> 
> ...


This is so tempting to try.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

avrex said:


> This is so tempting to try.


but avrex since when were you ever scrappy? i've always known you as a sweetie ...


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

vitaminsarenecessary said:


> humble_pie - thanks so much for explaining this I think I have an better idea about how it works now.
> 
> Yes I am thinking about converting about 30k of CAD to USD and purchase S&P Indexed ETF.
> 
> I'm opening an tddi account very soon and I have some savings and am planning to build a diversified portfolio with quality equity and bonds to achieve long term goals using tddi which is why I'm interested in gambit using tddi




vitamins you were saying that you might have something like $20-30k in CAD to convert into USD?

when larry81 sent you the DLR suggestion upthread, he had an excellent idea for a new investor. The DLRs (there's DLR & DLR.U) are ETFs that were invented for balky brokers like the TD, who get persnickety about doing the sell side of gambit trades at web commissions.

you see, DLR.U is pegged, so the party buying DLR immediately locks in their exchange rate. After that, the party can easily wait 3 days or however long it takes the big green to journal the DLR shares from CAD account into DLR.U. 

once journalled into DLR.U, the shares can be sold online for the usual low online commish (notice that, because both DLR & DLR.U are canadian etfs & DLR.U trades only in the tiny US segment of the toronto stock exchange, it will likely be necessary to sell DLR.U out of canadian account) (check with a TD rep for precise instruction before you go to sell DLR.U.)

when an investor finally sells DLR.U, he receives the correct amount of US dollars as per his original purchase of DLR.

horizons betaPro, the vendor of the DLR etfs, has a built-in spread of something like 2 per mil. There's also a small MER within the ETF, of course. These are very reasonable charges imho.

eventually an experienced trader will go straight to an interlisted common stock like RY as a gambit carrier stock. But for a new investor, trying everything out for the very first time & seeking to convert CAD into USD at best rate, i for one think the DLRs fit the bill very nicely.


----------



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Interesting stuff. humble_pie, I may try the scrappy method myself (though as you know I do the reverse as I'm converting USD to CAD).

See if I have this right, for the direction I'm doing: in my TDDI US account, I would buy RY shares on US market. I would then immediately sell RY shares, again within the US account (ending in 'F'), but this time choose CA market. Does the web interface even let me make trades like that? And then after placing the trade early in the day, I'd call in the afternoon and ask them to ... what exactly? ... journal the shares from where to where? I did not understand what I am asking a rep to do.

_aside_: all is well over here in Turkey. Sunny and 30 C, about to go for another swim in the sea. Awful news out of Ankara this morning though and as I'm heading there in a few days, I'm worried. I will continue to be cautious and avoid crowds & public demonstrations.


----------



## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

Horizon actually have a walk through on using DLR/DLR.U
http://www.horizonsetfs.com/horizons/media/pdfs/factsheets/DLR-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Take note that the sell operation is performed on the USD account

I always preferred to use inter listed stock (i usually pick TD) but if the TD phone reps start giving my troubles i will simply switch to DLR/DLR.U. While i don't like the idea of waiting 3 days with DLR/DLR.U, i like the convenience of this modus operandi.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

larry81 said:


> ... Take note that the sell operation is performed on the USD account



good link to the walk-through.

sell in USD account is what i've heard, but i believe one has to choose "canadian market"?

because DLR.U doesn't trade in any US exchange, it only trades in the tiny US section of the toronto stock exchange.


----------



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Right, both DLR and DLR.U are on the Canadian market (both are TSX symbols) so you must specify market: CA for any of these trades


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

james4beach said:


> See if I have this right, for the direction I'm doing: in my TDDI US account, I would buy RY shares on US market. I would then immediately sell RY shares, again within the US account (ending in 'F'), but this time choose CA market. Does the web interface even let me make trades like that?
> 
> And then after placing the trade early in the day, I'd call in the afternoon and ask them to ... what exactly? ... journal the shares from where to where? I did not understand what I am asking a rep to do.




yes, the web platform will allow the trade. I set up a test order to sell an interlisted *out of* USD account but *into* canadian market. It appeared to work perfectly, exactly as the reverse operation also works in a scrappy trade (ie sell out of canadian account into US market.)

the usual currency warning will appear ("does not match" etc) but one just checks the warning & carries on.

the key thing is to call the TD any time of the day after one has sold the gambit. This same day feature is the important detail, one cannot do this the following day.

one asks the rep to CFO the order (change former order) from the account of sale to the opposite currency account. In your case, going from USD to CAD, you would CFO the order from the US to the canadian account. Your just-filled sell order would already be in canadian dollars.

aah, perrfect.


----------



## mcu (Dec 6, 2009)

do you still have to wait 3 days to settle? I have USD I would like to exchange to CAD, but the volatility lately, waiting 3 days could result in a loss or gain in 3-4cents.
Would RBC, CIBC or BMO work better than my existing TD?


----------



## mcu (Dec 6, 2009)

mcu said:


> do you still have to wait 3 days to settle? I have USD I would like to exchange to CAD, but the volatility lately, waiting 3 days could result in a loss or gain in 3-4cents.
> Would RBC, CIBC or BMO work better than my existing TD?


anyone??


----------



## avrex (Nov 14, 2010)

For TDDI non-registered accounts....



mcu said:


> do you still have to wait 3 days to settle?


Yes. 



mcu said:


> I have USD I would like to exchange to CAD, but the volatility lately, waiting 3 days could result in a loss or gain in 3-4cents.


That's right. You can either,
a) accept that currencies can fluctuate in the next 3 days or b) pay (with certainty  ) the *1.5%* that TD charges for currency conversions.
My preference is always a).



mcu said:


> Would RBC, CIBC or BMO work better than my existing TD?


Only you can decided if the additional work for the occasional currency conversion at TD is worth it to you.
(I have decided to remain at TDDI.)

Also check out the Scrappy gambit and scrappy reverse gambit (SRG) thread for more info on gambitting in the TDDI non-registered account.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

avrex said:


> You can either,
> a) accept that currencies can fluctuate in the next 3 days or b) pay (with certainty  ) the *1.5%* that TD charges for currency conversions.
> My preference is always a).



me i believe there's also a (c) option though. He could phone the big green & get that carrier stock sold immediately.

on such an occasion, one of 2 or even 3 different actions are possible. He might (c) (i) reach a kind-hearted representive who will charge him an online $9.99 commission for the sell order. These kind hearts are more likely to be found in ottawa or montreal call centres.

or he might (c) (ii) reach an evil-minded representative who has been programmed to charge him a full agent-handled commission for his gambit sell order. These ogres are more likely to be found in markham call centre.

then there's (c) (iii). With this option, gambit trader can listen respectfully to the kind of commission the TD agent intends to charge for the sell order, then slither away if he hears that commish is going to be the ogre version. Of course, this means that he will have to call back later & try again with a different agent, in hopes of reaching a kind-hearted rep rather than an ogre.


----------

