Journaling Shares

Journaling shares refers to exchanging equivalent, dual-listed shares from different exchanges. When an investment trades on two different exchanges, you’re able to freely exchange shares from one exchange to another. In some cases, these exchanges may be denominated in different currencies, so by journaling your shares you can also exchange the currency of your asset.

Journaling shares in order to avoid currency conversion fees is commonly referred to as “Norbert’s Gambit”, due to its popularization by Norbert Schlenker, an investment advisor in BC. This strategy is commonly used to exchange equivalent shares that trade on different exchanges in different currencies.

For example:

• ‘TD.TO’ shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and represent common shares of Toronto-Dominion bank in Canadian dollars. 
• ‘TD’ shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), also representing common shares of Toronto-Dominion bank, however these trade in U.S. Dollars.

Both ‘ticker’ symbols (short form of the company name) represent the same company, and asset, just in different currencies. When this is the case, you are able to ‘Journal’ shares from the CAD ticker to the USD ticker, or vice-versa.

While you may be able to avoid currency exchange fees, you may incur commissions, settlement delays and potential exchange rate risk while waiting for the journal request to complete. 

Please note: There are many different dual-listed investments, ‘TD’ is shown as an example only and should not be taken as any form of investment or trading advice.

Questrade Inc. is unable to provide direct investment advice or recommendations as an order-execution-only broker.

Important to know:

• Journal requests take 1-2 business days to process
• If you’re journaling a recently purchased investment, please allow for settlement time which will delay your request by 1 business day from the date of the trade.
• For example: You buy shares on Monday, and enter your Journal request the same day. We allow 1 day for the trade to settle (Tuesday), and an additional 1-2 business days for the request itself. (Wednesday/Thursday)
• You can only Journal shares of equivalent assets.
• Journal requests are free, however you may be charged a commission when initially purchasing the investment, or when later selling it.
• If you’ve entered a Journal request, please refrain from trading that specific investment while we’re processing your request.
• Once your Journal request has been processed, if you choose to sell the shares and withdraw the funds, you will have to wait an additional 2 day for the new shares to ‘settle’.

Placing a Journal request

Follow these steps to journal shares:

1. Purchase the investment you’d like to journal (If you don’t already own it)
   • Please be aware of settlement time which is the date of the trade plus 1 business day (T+1). If your trade has not settled, this will delay your Journal request by 1 business day.
2. Contact us via chat, call us at 1.888.783.7866. Or email support@questrade.com with your request.

   If you email us, please include the following:

   • Account Number
   • The ticker symbol and exchange of the investment you’re journaling (For example: TD.TO on the TSX)
   • The quantity of shares
   • The ticker symbol and exchange of the equivalent investment that you require (For example: TD on the NYSE)

Disclaimer

Questrade Inc. cannot be held responsible for any potential currency fluctuations and risk with Journaling as a result of said currency fluctuations. Please be aware that with settlement time included, this request can take up to 5 business days to process, and you may be exposed to foreign exchange fluctuations during this time. Journaling is not without risk, and this article should not be taken as any form of investment or trading advice.