Can It Be Free?
Free trading didn’t make Wall Street generous—it just changed how you pay. Don and Tom dig into the rise of zero-commission trading, how firms like Robinhood really make their money, and why more trading almost always means worse investor outcomes. They explore payment for order flow, dopamine-driven speculation, and the uneasy overlap between investing, gambling, and prediction markets. Listener questions cover tokenized stocks (spoiler: bucket shops in digital clothing), early retirement withdrawal rules, annuity-heavy default retirement plans, and Vanguard’s new “Core Plus” bond ETF—raising the timeless question of whether bonds are meant to make you rich or keep you sane.
0:04 Remembering the “good old days” of fat commissions
0:33 From $200 trades to zero commissions—what really changed
1:18 Free trading everywhere… so how do brokers make money now?
2:37 Robinhood’s explosive growth and the rise of trading culture
3:15 Trading volume triples in six years—what that signals
4:42 Payment for order flow, cash sweeps, and hidden costs
6:21 Are investors actually getting a deal from free trading?
7:13 Why frequent trading and poor returns go hand in hand
8:21 Dopamine, gambling mechanics, and Robinhood’s design problem
9:47 Day trading: the comeback nobody needed
10:57 Why most day traders lose—and taxes make it worse
11:36 Prediction markets: gambling with an investing label
13:16 Listener questions begin
15:55 What is a tokenized stock—and why it’s not investing
17:25 Bucket shops, NFTs, and synthetic “stocks”
18:45 Early retirement withdrawals and the Rule of 55
19:33 Default retirement plans stuffed with annuities—good idea?
21:20 Liquidity risk and why annuities aren’t one-size-fits-all
22:26 Vanguard’s new Core Plus Bond ETF (BNDP)
24:13 Chasing yield vs. using bonds for stability
26:20 Why bonds shouldn’t be your return engine
27:36 Hoping for a calmer 2026 (good luck with that)