trading withing tfsa using tradefreedom

[tremblayj]

i called not too long ago and asked if this was possible and i was told no. Now i have been seeing a lot of advertisements that you can do this (questrade comes to mind).
i trade U.S. stocks some on the big markets and some otcbb. I don;t "trade" to often, i hold for a minimum of usually a week and many for over a month.
is there a discount broker that would allow you to trade these stocks within a tfsa so as to avoid taxes on the interest or is that not at all possible?

[bcbgboy13]

Have you seen this?

http://www.tradefreedom.com/en/tfsa/index.asp

Just open a TFSA if you are familiar with the interface and satisfied with them (and their fees)

Every brokerage in Canada should have a TFSA by now.
The important thing is to minimize the fees (commissions, account maintenance fees, low activity fees, account opening/closing/transferring/withdrawing fees...) as you initially will have only $5000.

[SpellQ]

They definitely allow stock trading within the TFSA at tradefreedom. Did a little buying this morning, in fact. :)

[tremblayj]

well i have had to deal with a few incompetent service reps while with tradefreedom so i should know better than to trust the first answer i get. i guess thats why i come here, ha.
so my only other question is how to minimize the fees you are talking about. currently i just trade which cost $9.95 and that is it. there obviously is some amount lost on the conversion fees but that doesn;t happen often. are there any other differences (with respect to fees) compared to my normal trading account?
also is it a problem that i buy all US stocks which would leave me with just US funds in my TFSA?
thanks for the responses

[ray420]

Yes you can trade WITHIN the TFSA as much as you want, as long as the money stays in the account there is no restrictions trading!

here is a quick TFSA FAQ (http://financialhighway.com/tax-free-savings-account-tfsa-faq/) that might be helpful

You might also find the Discount Brokers Review (http://financialhighway.com/canadian-discount-brokerage-review-and-comparison/) for TFSA and RRSP useful, for what you are doing I think questrade would be the best option $4.95/trade no annual TFSA fees or RRSP fees. Plus you can get $50 see the review for details.

[tremblayj]

ok so i called tradefreedom and asked about the tfsa accounts to get some clarification and as you guys have said you can use it as a normal account. i did find that only recognized exchanges can be traded meaning no over the counter stuff. also they don;t have the ability to hold different currencies so everytime i sold a position in a US stock it would be converted back to canadian funds and then to buy again it would then be convereted back to US. so it seems that it should work pretty simply but now I have to figure out how much i will be loosing by converting these funds over and over again (probably expensive)
are there other discount brokers where i wouldn;t have to do this?

[twoplustwo]

I'm thinking it would be a pain to trade inside a TFSA simply because you cannot get margin with that type of account. The standard 3 day settlement period applies.