A stockbroker is an individual or company that buys and sells stocks and other investments for a financial market participant in return for a commission, markup, or fee. In most countries they are regulated as a broker or broker-dealer and may need to hold a relevant license and may be a member of a stock exchange. They generally act as a financial advisor and investment manager. In this case they may also be licensed as a financial adviser such as a registered investment adviser.
Fidelity Investments, commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is one of the largest asset managers in the world with $4.3 trillion in assets under management, and, as of December 2022, their assets under administration amount to $10.3 trillion. Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
TradeStation Group, Inc. is the parent company of online securities and futures brokerage firms and trading technology companies. It is headquartered in Plantation, Florida, and has offices in New York; Chicago; Richardson, Texas; London; Sydney; and Costa Rica. TradeStation is best known for the technical analysis software and electronic trading platform it provides to active traders and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation Group was a Nasdaq GS-listed company from 1997 to 2011, until it was acquired by Monex Group, a Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed parent company of one of Japan's leading online securities brokerage firms.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. The list of assets that each ETF owns, as well as their weightings, is posted on the website of the issuer daily, or quarterly in the case of active non-transparent ETFs. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. is a Canadian financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toronto-Dominion Bank. The company does business through several divisions, namely TD Direct Investing, TD Wealth Financial Planning, and TD Wealth Private Investment Advice. The TD Waterhouse brand was also formerly used for TD's American and British brokerages.
The Charles Schwab Corporation is an American multinational financial services company. It offers banking, commercial banking, investing and related services including consulting, and wealth management advisory services to both retail and institutional clients. It has over 400 branches, primarily in financial centers in the United States and the United Kingdom. It ranks tenth on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets. As of December 31, 2022, it had $7.05 trillion in client assets, 33.8 million active brokerage accounts, 2.4 million corporate retirement plan participants, and 1.7 million banking accounts. It also offers a donor advised fund for clients seeking to donate securities. It was founded in San Francisco, California, and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas.
CIBC Capital Markets is the investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The firm operates as an investment bank both in Canadian and global equity and debt capital markets. The firm provides a variety of financial services including equity and debt capital market products, mergers and acquisitions, global markets, merchant banking, and other investment banking advisory services.
Prime brokerage is the generic term for a bundled package of services offered by investment banks, wealth management firms, and securities dealers to hedge funds which need the ability to borrow securities and cash in order to be able to invest on a netted basis and achieve an absolute return. The prime broker provides a centralized securities clearing facility for the hedge fund so the hedge fund's collateral requirements are netted across all deals handled by the prime broker. These two features are advantageous to their clients.
A financial adviser or financial advisor is a professional who provides financial services to clients based on their financial situation. In many countries, financial advisors must complete specific training and be registered with a regulatory body in order to provide advice.
Stifel Financial Corp. is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company created under the Stifel name in July 1983 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 24, 1986. Its predecessor company was founded in 1890 as the Altheimer and Rawlings Investment Company and is headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.
EFG Hermes Holding S.A.E. is an Egyptian financial services company present in the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia regions and specializes in securities brokerage, asset management, investment banking, private equity and research in addition to finance lease, factoring, microfinance, Financial technology, mortgage, and insurance. EFG Hermes serves a range of clients including sovereign wealth funds, endowments, corporations, financial institutions, high-net-worth clients and individual customers. EFG Hermes is listed on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) and London (LSE) stock exchanges. EFG Hermes has offices in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Kenya, Nigeria, UK, United States and Bangladesh with over 4,500 people from 25 nationalities. They serve clients from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States. Currently, EFG Holding is listed as number 13 in Forbes' Top 50 Listed Companies in Egypt 2023.
The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, better known as CySEC, is the financial regulatory agency of Cyprus. As an EU member state, CySEC's financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.
Merrill Edge is an electronic trading platform and investment advisory service that provides self-directed and guided investment options for individuals and businesses. It is a subsidiary of Bank of America and was launched in 2010 after the merger between Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. Merrill Edge offers a wide range of investment products, including stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), margin lending, mutual funds, and options.
Interactive Brokers LLC (IB) is an American multinational brokerage firm. It operates the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of daily average revenue trades. The company brokers stocks, options, futures, EFPs, futures options, forex, bonds, funds, and some cryptocurrencies.
DEGIRO is a European brokerage company based in Amsterdam. It was founded in 2008 by a group of five former employees of Binck Bank to service the professional market. In 2013, DEGIRO started offering its stockbrokerage services to retail investors, giving them online access to security exchanges worldwide. Investors can buy and sell such securities as common and preferred stocks, fixed income (bonds), options, mutual funds, warrants, and ETFs via an electronic trading platform or by phone.
BMO SmartFolio is a digital investment management service offered by Canada’s Bank of Montreal. Broadly referred to as a robo-advisor, the service allows investors to answer a series of questions online about their investment goals, time horizon and risk tolerance, then are recommended a model portfolio made up of index-tracking exchange-traded funds based on the investor’s profile, managed by financial professionals with BMO Global Asset Management and BMO Nesbitt Burns.
Wealthsimple Inc. is a Canadian online investment management service. The firm was founded in September 2014 by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt and Rudy Adler and is based in Toronto. As of November 2021, the firm holds over C$15 billion in assets under management. It is primarily owned by Power Corporation indirectly at 42.5% through investments made through their holdings in Power Financial, IGM Financial and Portag3.
Credential Qtrade Securities Inc., operating as Qtrade, is a stockbrokerage firm based in Vancouver, Canada. It runs the online investment platform Qtrade Direct Investing and robo-advising service Qtrade Guided Portfolios. As of November 2016, it claimed to have $11.5 billion in assets and partnerships with over 150 Canadian credit unions, as well as insurance companies including Sun Life and Great West Life. Like all brokerages and investment dealers, they are members of Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and as such, the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) protects investors should the brokerage become insolvent.
CI Financial is the largest investment management firm by assets under management in Canada. Based in Toronto, Ontario, it offers investment management and wealth management services targeted to high net worth retail investors, as well as brokerage and trading services to portfolio managers and institutional investors. It is considered one of the Big Three investment management companies in Canada, along with Mackenzie Investments and Fiera Capital.
Questrade is an online brokerage firm and wealth management firm based in Canada. It is Canada's largest discount broker.
