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Bank offices in Toronto in March. Toronto-Dominion Bank launched a salvo in the war against brokerage fees with its announcement that the TD Easy Trade app was raising the number of free trades per year. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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Happy Tuesday! I’m Andrew Galbraith, a new investing reporter at the Globe, and I’m stepping in to write On Money for David Berman today. |
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One of the many things I’ve learned in the past week that seem obvious in hindsight (I’m reliably informed the “6-7” meme is passé) is that the English and French words for most days of the week are etymologically linked. Tuesday is named for Týr (Tiw in Old English), the Norse god of war. His name was swapped in for Mars in a Germanification of Roman gods and Latin days of the week. Tuesday is dies Martis, also known as mardi. |
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This Tuesday I want to focus on a rare, positive kind of belligerence: the war against brokerage fees. TD Direct Investing launched a salvo in late March with its announcement that the TD Easy Trade app was raising the number of free trades per year to 100 from 50. |
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On Monday, relative newcomer Webull Canada became the latest online brokerage in Canada to offer commission-free trading for U.S. and Canadian equities and ETFs. |
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Webull entered the Canadian market in early 2024 at a time of rapid growth of do-it-yourself investing. In a report that year, investor rights group FAIR Canada cited data showing a rise in digital trading accounts to 11.4 million by late 2023 from 2.3 million in 2020. |
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Another 2024 survey by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) found that lower fees were second only to “personal control over my investments” as motivations for opening DIY investing accounts. |
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The pull of low fees is such that Michael Constantino, CEO of Webull Canada, told me he expects the elimination of commissions to drive a 20-to-25-per-cent increase in user accounts for the remainder of the year. That’s despite a range of other brokerages – including Qtrade, Questrade, Wealthsimple and National Bank Direct Brokerage – already offering zero-commission trading. |
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Where does that leave Canadians looking for an online brokerage? Mr. Constantino said Webull’s deep market data, charting tools, user interface and range of order types help it to stand apart from other Canadian brokerages. |
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But as the recent news of Wealthsimple gaining approval to offer prediction trading showed, brokerages are pushing for more ways to differentiate themselves in an increasingly commodified market. Even if those moves are sometimes questionable. |
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Webull already offers prediction trading in the United States in partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi Inc. Asked if the company is considering launching prediction trading in Canada, Mr. Constantino didn’t exactly say no. |
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“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re on that path as well,” he said. |
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He added that clients are asking for prediction trading and that regulators “are getting inundated with questions about it.” |
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Do you care about having the latest and greatest features and functions? Do you agree that commission-free trading is a must-have, or do you prioritize something else in choosing an online brokerage? |
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Subscribe to the On Money newsletter
Are you reading this newsletter on the web or did someone forward the e-mail version to you? If so, you can sign up for On Money here. |
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| Finding summer child care is tricky and expensive
We are in the depths of summer-camp planning, putting us well behind the curve among Vancouver parents. Finding child-care options over the summer break can be a stressful, expensive experience, but this guide offers plenty of practical advice. Excuse me while I browse Portuguese vacation properties. | | |
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How mortgage interest costs are affecting rental inflation
As a renter in one of the world’s least affordable housing markets, this new research from staff at the Bank of Canada caught my eye. In short, they found when the population is growing quickly, higher mortgage costs will have a major impact on rents that is hard to fix with monetary policy tightening. | | |
| Everything you always wanted to know about credit (free registration required)
This piece from the Financial Times’s Alphaville blog is a few weeks old but deserves all the readers it can get. It is a remarkably in-depth and gleefully readable primer on the world of corporate debt. What is private credit? How do credit ratings work and how reliable are they? How have Canadian companies preferred to default on their obligations? It’s all here. | | |
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The ‘trusted-assistant’ loan in 19th-century China
Since we’re on the topic of credit, I have to share one of my favourite short papers of all time. In 19th-century Imperial China, scholars who passed the civil service exams took out loans to hire staff and pay for expensive, lengthy journeys to their postings. With no legal creditor protections to rely on, banks appointed “trusted assistants” to the scholars, usually bank employees with incentives for successful loan collection. Experienced assistants made themselves indispensable to book-smart but tenderfooted scholars, and the result was a far higher rate of loan repayments. Smart! |
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Have investors forgotten how to panic? This story looks at how the stock market has been conditioned to look through each new shock before it has really begun. |
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