The recent decision by Charles Schwab to offer zero-commission trading and the resulting domino effect among its competitors have triggered tremors throughout the online brokerage landscape. Ever since free trading was pioneered by Robinhood in 2012, many observers expected this model to eventually become the industry standard. That perception became reality this month as major online broker-dealers Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade and Fidelity all announced their adoption of
By: Scott Coyle, CEO There’s been plenty of chatter about Loyal3 shutting down operations and transitioning users off its platform. There’s been quite a bit of vitriol as well, so we thought we’d comment on this news. You see, Loyal3 was not successful with their particular model of fee-free brokerage, but they did prove something, and they were, at least in part, trying to solve an important problem in the public markets. Specifically, Loyal3 showed that IPOs could be offered to everyday
By: Scott Coyle, CEO The IPO market is cyclical. Fluctuations in the supply/demand ratio of deals and megadeals in the pipeline are influenced by a myriad of factors, including stock market stability, regulatory changes and global economic and political shifts. Last year was particularly punishing for the IPO market. For mature startups on the cusp of going public in late 2015 and 2016, staying private longer was an attractive option due to a still-shaky stock market, policies that make it tougher and