What Is Wrong with Canada’s Capital Markets?

Abstract

Today’s markets are more unfair than ever. Market participants benefiting from a technological advantage and the financial capability to leverage it deploy strategies that make the playing field uneven and are harmful to long-term investors. The quality of execution in today’s markets is impaired by predatory trading strategies, and considerable wealth is transferred from the average citizen to a small subset of market participants. There have always been predatory trading strategies. But now they’re systemic, amplified by marketplaces that are complicit. The pendulum has swung too far; it has become taxation without representation.