Is it easy to buy and sell stock? Is it safe for investing? Find out the pros and cons of the Wealthsimple Trade app and website.
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Since making its debut in 2014, Canada’s Wealthsimple has helped to demystify investing for hundreds of thousands of regular people who want to grow their money. The company’s success thus far is unquestionable: As of late February 2021, its AUM (assets under management) have been valued at $8.4 billion, and its online investment management tools have won multiple awards. In March 2019, Wealthsimple introduced Wealthsimple Trade* which immediately attracted attention for its ability to allow Canadians to buy and sell individual stocks and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) with zero commission fees. In late January, Wealthsimple Trade* was ranked number one in the Canadian Apple App Store, and has remained in the top 10 ever since.
Wondering if Wealthsimple Trade* is right for you? Here, we present the pros and cons of Wealthsimple Trade, as well as take a deeper dive into its features and how it works, so you can decide.
Whether you’re a first-time investor or a seasoned one—passive or active—Wealthsimple Trade* is the simplest, most inexpensive tool available for buying and selling Canadian stocks and ETFs. For those with more heavily diversified investment interests (such as buying U.S. equities) or who need access to trading tools and analytics, Questrade* or another online brokerage may be a better alternative.
Open a Wealthsimple Trade account* >
Whether you’re signing up on your phone or computer, it’s very simple and it takes just a few minutes. Enter your email address and a password of your choosing (if you already have a Wealthsimple account, just use your existing login info), then the app/site guides you through the rest. You have the option of creating an unregistered account, a TFSA and/or an RRSP. (Unfortunately, you can’t open RRIF or a LIRA accounts with Wealthsimple Trade.)
If you’ve ever used PayPal or done an Interac e-Transfer, you’ll find this just as easy. You link your bank account to your Wealthsimple Trade* account and input the amount you want to move (up to $50,000 per transfer). As mentioned above in the “cons” section, it can take up to three business days to process your deposit, and there’s no feature to automate your deposits, so you’ll want to manually set calendar reminders/notifications if you want to regularly set up deposits to benefit from dollar-cost averaging.
In a positive new development: If you want to move money from one Wealthsimple platform to another—say, from Wealthsimple Invest to Wealthsimple Trade—there’s now an automated feature for this. You’ll need to transfer your investment funds in the form of cash, however.
Wealthsimple Trade* currently supports trades within the largest stock exchanges in North America, including the Toronto (TSX) and New York (NYSE) Stock Exchanges, TSX Venture Exchange (TSVX), NASDAQ and NEO.
Your investments needn’t have a U.S. or Canadian bias, since you’ll have access to index funds and ETFs listed on the above-mentioned exchanges with diversified holdings that track international companies and virtually all sectors.
If you’re taking a passive, long-term approach to investing, you can access iShares and Vanguard ETFs and build an ideal “couch potato” investment portfolio—all for free. You can buy everything from emerging-market ETFs to cryptocurrency ETFs that track market performance in various sectors.
While Wealthsimple Trade’s stock market scope doesn’t expand internationally—thus ruling out buying individual stocks from the likes of the Bombay and Hong Kong stock exchanges—you can buy index funds that track the performance of international companies from the available exchanges.
Wealthsimple is known for being a safe and easy way to invest, so this addition to the app is definitely interesting. You can start your account with a minimum of $1 (but that’s not going to buy you much right now). You should know that using this platform doesn’t give you a crypto wallet; instead you’re buying/selling in the digital assets of Wealthsimple.
When you add the ability to buy/sell crypto on your account, Wealthsimple is great in communicating some of the risks. So really read the disclaimer–don’t just check the box to move on to the next screen like it’s an online cookies agreement. This is where you will learn about how your crypto assets are held (in a pool of Wealthsimple’s digital assets), who shouldn’t invest (those who would need to pull from retirement funds, student loans, mortgage, emergency funds or other critical funds to invest in crypto), as well as risks (short history; volatility; market value dependant on demand; technical and cyber security issues; temporary blockchains (read more on blockchains); and more. You will also do a quick quiz on your crypto knowledge and risk tolerance.
Your crypto investments are part of a non-registered account on Wealthsimple Trade* so you will have to pay taxes on any gains you make (note there are ways to invest in crypto within a registered account to avoid this—just not through Wealthsimple). The only two types of crypto you have access to are bitcoin and ethereum. You will have access to current prices as well as history charts, too. Again, there are no commission costs and trading can be done whenever you have access to your phone or computer (24/7).
Yes, really! It can’t be overstated how key this is to Wealthsimple’s success—it’s the only trading platform in Canada without commissions on trade, whereas many of its competitors charge a flat rate of around $5 to $10 per trade, or a percentage of your trade value. Again, this is a particular boon for passive, long-term investors, who now can build a well-diversified portfolio for absolutely no commissions.
Open a Wealthsimple Trade account* >
Hidden, no. As mentioned, there are no commissions for trading, nor are there any recurring “member fees” or withdrawal fees—and that’s the case regardless of your balance.
But there are moderate potential fees you’ll want to know about.
When trading U.S. equities listed on the New York Stock Exchange, you’ll have to pay a 1.5% foreign-exchange fee, since the trade is a non-Canadian currency. This isn’t exclusive to Wealthsimple, but whereas some other platforms allow you to hold U.S. dollars and leverage “Norbert’s gambit” (meaning you can strategically and cheaply convert your Canadian dollars to buy U.S. stocks), Wealthsimple doesn’t. An upside, though, is that you can buy ETFs and stocks listed on Canadian exchanges that track the performance of multiple U.S. companies (for example, the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF).
There are small fees associated with other transactions—such as $45 for a broker-assisted phone trade, or $20 for a paper account statement—but you’ll rarely, if ever, require these.
Yes. But if you’re a passive, long-term investor without a lot of experience, you’re probably not going to mind.
Wealthsimple clients are restricted to trading equities like stocks and ETFs. So, if you want to, for example, buy mutual funds or participate in a company’s IPO, you’ll have to go elsewhere. It’s for this reason that more ambitious or experienced investors may opt for the likes of Qtrade or Questrade*—which, while not as easy to use as Wealthsimple (and with different fees), offer a greater range of options. Wealthsimple is also restricted to stock exchanges within North America, therefore ruling out major international exchanges.
At the time of this article’s publication, Wealthsimple Trade’s desktop version was still in its beta (testing) phase. So you’ll probably want to stick with the smartphone app for now.
That said, buying stocks and ETFs is as easy as it gets. Simply search stocks by their three- or four-letter ticker abbreviation, then click to buy shares. Done!
To help guide your choices, you can also access basic statistics about specific equities, such as their P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio, plus snapshots of trending and top stocks across various market segments and categories. Again, these can be found with just a click or two. The overall experience is extremely intuitive, so novice investors are unlikely to feel intimidated.
Needless to say, if you’re going to be moving your money—no matter how small the amount—through an online platform, you are always concerned with security. Take comfort in knowing Wealthsimple’s products, including Wealthsimple Trade*, are widely trusted. And the financial tech company has won multiple awards for its service. Approximately 1.5 million customers have invested their trust in Wealthsimple, which is why the platform currently has more than $8.4 billion in assets. And Wealthsimple’s primary owner, Power Corporation of Canada, is a more than 100-year-old institution with over $450 billion in assets and 30,000 employees.
An additional layer of comfort: Wealthsimple is regulated by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada—just like all of Canada’s major financial institutions.
Open a Wealthsimple Trade account* >
The term “game-changer” is thrown around far too often, particularly in reference to technological innovations. But Wealthsimple Trade* truly has transformed investing for countless Canadians who previously were too intimidated by the process to try their hand. For beginner and passive investors seeking long-term growth with minimal action required on their part, this is a great platform to try—not least because there are no commission fees, and very few fees of any kind.
While the platform is missing some features that may enhance its appeal to more sophisticated investors (such as analytics tools or the ability to employ Norbert’s gambit), those things may likely come with time. Regardless, this is an online investing tool that lives up to the hype, and is as good a place as any to get started if you’re ready to dip your toe in the waters of the stock market.
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I tried for over a month with 3 emails and 3 calls but couldn’t get a person to call me from WealthSimple to review the transfer of monies to their trading-investment platform, and also to view the interfaces to transact trades-investments. Each time I called, I waited for over 30 minutes and then the calls were disconnected from WealthSimple’s side! I did get a couple email responses, and despite providing my contact details, all they did was acknowledge receipt of my emails and to give them a call or view their website. I reviewed the superficial descriptions about their services, but I wanted to see pictures of the interface(s) for trading-investing, and still have not seen any changes after providing my feedback several months ago. So that ain’t the kind of Customer Support that instills any confidence for me to entrust my monies!
what is this trade platform for it what dose it cost to started
I have used for almost 2yrs. Its been getting better especially year end tax documents. I do agree if you need to talk to someone its a problem. What I like is you can make a small share count of canadian stocks no fees and its like a mini etf without a mer.
Worst experience ever. I had to call customer service because of an issue and it took me about 40 minutes to get through. Linking my bank account didn’t work so I had to email them personally which took a few days to get linked. There were 2 deposits that I tried to put in which gave me an error and when I tried again, it tried depositing the ones that got errored without letting me know. They blamed me for not checking and assuming that the errored transactions were cancelled. I was charged by my bank for this and both my bank and WealthSimple were busy blaming each other and me. There is a reason why it is free (and it isn’t even completely free since they charge the US stocks). I was extremely disappointed with this app.
Why wealthsimple trade shows $100 plus price from the current price to buy ethereum. I want to buy but it shows expensive price than the real.
I love this platform. I’m a real newbie but so far, so good! It’s quite easy to set up a purchase.
There are better apps/sites for trading Crypto for Canadians, like Newton, but I am loving the platform for buying stocks in my TFSA. I’ve been showing all my friends 🙂
I cannot log into my account