RP

For those who might not know how to convert between CAD and USD without friction from forex fees and taxes from forex gains in brokerage accounts, thought I’d share what I’ve been doing: First, most brokerage accounts come with CAD and USD accounts. In the example of a TFSA (CAD and USD accounts), when wanting to convert CAD to USD: With CAD, buy DLR.TO (Horizons US dollar Currency ETF). Once this settles, call your brokerage and ask them to journal your DLR.TO shares to DLR.U.TO in the USD account. Once DLR.U.TO has settled in your USD account, sell to USD. The cost of doing it this way is 2 trading commissions plus a negligible ETF bid/ask spread. For every $100,000 CAD converted, the savings is about $1,250, for every $1M CAD, the savings is around $15K. If you follow USDCAD rate fluctuations and aim to do this conversion when the USD has fallen in recent days/weeks, assuming the USD continues to be stronger over the long term, you make out even better, but this is obviously not guaranteed with sudden unexpected movements. The same can be done in reverse. Some people call this Norbert’s Gambit. Hope this helps!