Day Trading in 2020: Did Free Trading Change Everything? (EP.160)

Today we get the chance to take some very interesting listener questions and dig into fascinating findings on day trading in 2020. To kick things off we have a quick review of Simon Sinek's insightful new book, The Infinite Game before rounding up some of the news from the investing space. Then it's time to tackle a number of questions from a member of our thriving community and break down some helpful responses to queries about bonds, retirement, convexity, different types of ETFs, and more. We were lucky enough to draw on some great wisdom within our network of advisors to help us answer these complex questions, so you will not want to miss the specifics that we dive into. From there, we dive into the main course of today's show, exploring the topic of day trading in 2020. With the rise of mobile trading on apps like Robinhood, there has been a spike in what some may call casual or free trading. We unpack some of the surprising and not-so-surprising findings on the impact of Robinhood's model, looking at the community's trend towards herding and how the smartphone platforms are changing the way people invest. The main conclusion here may not be a big surprise to any of our listeners, with the higher frequency of transactions leading to worse returns in the long run. For all this, plus some Talking Sense questions cards, and a whole lot more, listen in with us. Key Points From This Episode: This week's book review of The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. [0:06:02.7] News from the world of investing: Vanguard's latest move into indexing, and more. [0:10:30.8] A series of listener questions dealing with bonds and retirement. [0:15:51.2] An argument for federal government bonds when prioritizing liquidity. [0:18:26.7] Understanding convexity and 'bullet' portfolios in this context. [0:20:36.7] Ten-year treasury ETFs versus all duration ETFs. [0:23:52.4] Weighing provincial bonds and their lack of liquidity against Canada's governmental bonds. [0:26:12.1] Looking into what the research shows us about day trading during last year. [0:29:01.6] Available data on Robinhood users and their general tendency to herd investments. [0:33:40.7] The losses incurred by the Robinhood community during herding. [0:38:29.0] Digging a little deeper on transaction costs and how this actually plays out at Robinhood. [0:44:20.1] Market efficiency as it relates to these new ways of 'free' trading. [0:48:29.6] Another round of Talking Sense cards; things to save and decision hindsight. [0:52:32.1] Bad advice of the week courtesy of Canada's big banks. [0:59:18.6]