The chart represents the average sale price of houses in the Toronto area over time. In stock trading, this price pattern resembles a parabolic rise followed by a correction and stabilization, which is often seen in speculative bubbles or cyclical markets.

Key Observations

Strong Uptrend (2015-2022) – A steady rise, followed by a sharp acceleration from 2020 to early 2022.

Sharp Peak and Decline (2022) – A bubble-like top where prices peaked sharply and then dropped rapidly.

Sideways Consolidation (2023-Present) – After the correction, prices seem to be moving in a range, fluctuating but not showing a strong new uptrend.

Comparable Stock Trading Pattern

Blow-Off Top: This pattern is seen when an asset experiences rapid price appreciation, followed by a steep decline. It resembles parabolic patterns found in speculative stock or crypto markets.

Head and Shoulders: If we look closely, the chart might suggest a broad head-and-shoulders pattern, which is a bearish reversal indicator.

Support and Resistance: The price appears to be bouncing around a level (~$1.3M) but is failing to break into new highs.

Prediction: Up or Down?

Bearish Outlook (More likely): Given the overall pattern, we might expect further declines if economic conditions (interest rates, demand, supply) remain unfavorable. The market has already corrected from the peak, and if it forms a lower high, we could see another leg down.

Bullish Scenario: If demand stabilizes and economic factors support growth, prices could hold at this level and potentially rise again.

Conclusion

The most likely scenario is continued consolidation or a slow decline unless a significant economic or policy shift boosts demand. If you’re using this chart for a housing market decision, consider external factors like interest rates, inflation, and government policies before making a final judgment.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Questrade Commissions

Get answers to some of the common questions about our $0 Commission Pricing

What does $0 commission trading mean for me?

It means that you don’t pay any commission fees when you buy or sell Canadian or U.S. listed stocks or ETFs online with Questrade. You can trade options with no ticket charge and just 99¢/contract. Keep more of your money with you—where it belongs.

There has never been a better time to be a Questrade customer. Click to open an account today. And good news, you can transfer for free¹.

Do I need to do anything to get $0?

Nope! $0 commission trading is the new normal at Questrade. You get it standard.

Is this a limited-time offer?

Great news, this is not a limited time offer! This is the new normal at Questrade. You have access to $0 commission trading with any of your self-directed Questrade accounts.

Which securities are eligible for $0 commission trading?

Canadian and U.S. listed stocks and ETFs are eligible securities for $0 commission trading. The price for options contracts is now 99¢/contract. However, commissions or other fees may apply to other securities such as international (non-U.S.-listed) stocks, bonds, IPOs, GICs, precious metals, etc. For a full list, see here.

If I have more than one account, do the $0 commissions apply to all my accounts?

Yes, $0 pricing is applied to all self-directed accounts, including joint and corporate accounts.

Foreign Exchange (FX) and Contracts for Difference (CFD) trading accounts have no change to their current pricing structure.

How do I make sure I am getting the $0 commissions?

The next time you make a trade, on the order entry screen, you’ll see $0.00 next to commissions. You can also see this on your trade confirmation report.

Will I be charged ECN fees?

For most stocks, options and ETFs, ECN fees will not apply. However, for certain types of trades such as Direct Market Access (DMA) orders and select Over-the-Counter (OTC) securities ECN fees may still apply.

You can learn more about Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs) here.

What other fees may apply?

While there are no commission fees for online trades of Canadian or U.S. listed stocks and ETFs, other fees may still apply like options contract fees, currency conversion fees or interest if you’re borrowing on margin. The price of options contracts is now 99¢/contract. Our fee schedule is available here.

What about options contract pricing?

You can trade options with no ticket charge and just 99¢/contract.

Our base options pricing used to be: $9.95 + $1/contract

Now it’s: $0 + 99¢/contract

A fee schedule is available here.

What happens if I have open orders?

Any eligible existing open orders you have will automatically be executed at our new commission-free price. Any new Canadian or U.S. stock or ETF order you place after February 9 will also be commission-free. For options trading, there is still a small options contract fee of 99¢/contract.

What happens if I have partial open order(s)?

If you have any eligible partial open orders they will automatically be executed commission-free. When the markets open on February 10, any new Canadian or U.S. listed stock or ETF orders that you place online will also be commission-free.

For example: You have an open order for 1,000 shares. If 250 shares were executed before February 9 you would be charged a commission for that portion. If the remaining 750 shares are purchased after February 10, they would be executed commission-free.

Do I need a special account to get $0 commission trading?

All Questrade self-directed accounts are automatically eligible for $0 commission online trading of Canadian and U.S. listed stocks and ETFs.

Are there any minimum deposit or account balance requirements?

Great news! We have no minimum account balance for our Questrade self-directed accounts.

What happens to my trade rebates with my Active Trader Market data pricing?

You no longer need to worry about meeting the minimum volumes to receive our trade rebates with our new commission-free pricing on stocks and ETFs! Now that commissions are $0, enroll in an active trader package, and you’ll automatically take advantage of our low options contract pricing of 75¢.

If I am an authorized trader on someone else’s account, how does this work?

Nothing changes if you are an authorized trader. Zero commission trade pricing will still apply.

Does this offer apply to my Questwealth Portfolios account(s)?

Questwealth Portfolios do not get charged commissions at all! You will still pay your regular management fee of 0.25% or less depending in part on the amount you have invested. To learn more about Questwealth Portfolios, click here.

Don’t have an account with Questrade? Sign up here.

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Questrade offers zero trading fees on many accounts, along with a user-friendly platform and a broad selection of investment options. Whether you’re managing your own ETF and stock trades or just getting started, it’s one of the most popular choices for Canadian investors — and for good reason.

And Here’s a Bonus

When you open your first self-directed trading account and fund it with $250 or more, you’ll get $50 cash back. It’s automatically credited within 90 days — and there’s no need to enter a code. Just use the link below to claim your offer:

Open an Account with Questrade

How to Qualify

• Click the link above to open a brand-new Self-Directed account.
• Deposit at least $250 within 60 days.
• Receive $50 cash back within 90 days of account opening.

It’s an easy win — zero commissions, $50 back, and a platform designed to support smart investing from day one.

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The financial tech company Wise, formerly TransferWise, offers a cheap way to send money from the U.S. to over 70 countries. The exchange rates are some of the best you’ll find. You can fund a Wise money transfer in various ways, such as with a bank account or credit card, but recipients need to have a bank account.

I don’t really use their main feature that much but have found some other Wise services very useful. Here are my favorite things:

Debit Cards

This is only available in some countries. You can obtain a physical VISA card that will allow you to use your Wise balance in the real world without transfering money to your local bank account.

Virtual Cards and “Freezing”

You can generate virtual credit cards on the fly. This is very useful if you want to pay on websites that you don’t trust or when you don’t want the vendor to automatically withdraw monthly payments. Once again, you would use the funds in your Wise account. After submitting payment, you can then freeze that virtual card number until next time.

International Accounts

If, as a Canadian, you ever need a US-based account in order to receive US dollar payments, Wise gives you that, with routing number, branch address and all that. Same thing for receiving Euro bank transfers and other currencies.

Promo code link

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My online sales career is long and illustrious. I’ve been at it since 2001 and have sold everything from art, jewelry, perfumes, household knick knacks, to – currently – skincare, both direct and via marketplaces (Ebay and others). It is at once a hobby, an addiction, and, in the early days, a safety net. And I’m always and forever trying to find ways to reduce the shipping costs. Even in pre-COVID times, shipping rates were getting out of hand and kept going up every quarter. Got to a point where to ship a 200g/0.5lb package to BC would cost about $25.

Yes, it’s true, even with Canada Post there are ways to save, like sending without tracking for smaller packages, but that wouldn’t work for fragile boxed items. Even for small flat bubble mailers it’s not worth the headache when a package gets lost. So many emails, “please wait another week”, “okay we’ll ship out a replacement”, “oh, the first one’s arrived 8 weeks late, great! what do we do about the replacement” and so on. Plus, Paypal and Stripe really like seeing shipment confirmation in case of a dispute. It’s rare, but can get unpleasant and it’s best to be armed with a tracking number.

Happily, last year I found FreightCom. I recommend it if you need a faster service with better rates. Their UPS rates for parcels going to the US save me at least $5-7 per pkg vs Canada Post, but the main advantage is the speed of delivery. To be fair, even in 2020 and now Canada Post has been great at getting packages to the border, but then USPS takes over and it can take a very long time. So that’s where UPS or Fedex come in, and FreightCom is a good option, highly recommend depending on your priorities.

However, if you don’t care much about timing and just want to save, save, save, go with my latest find – ChitChats! They pool the packages and then hand them off to either Canada Post or USPS in most cases. Still the same network, but for some reason, way better rates.

I’m somewhat reluctant to share this secret out of fear that I’ll ruin a very good thing. And then I think, the more customers they have, the better the rates they can offer. Probably. Hopefully. So here you you go. ChitChats.

I just created a shipment for a 100g package going from Toronto to North Carolina and it cost five dollars sixty nine cents. Canadian. Includes tracking and insurance. I kid you not. Canada Post would charge at least $12 for a tracked packet service. But typically you can expect something like $8-10 with ChitChats. Still very decent, almost like in the “old times”, in the “old normal” etc etc.

The post OMG! Cheap Canadian Shipping appeared first on Phantasmix.com.

Have you ever been stopped by the police when you’re walking down the street? Regulation 58/16 prohibits the ARBITRARY collection of identifying information by police.

You can learn more about your rights during street checks by visiting https://t.co/Yg922UfTvc#KnowYourRights

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) April 16, 2021

As we review the new #COVID19 provincial regulations announced today, please note that we will continue to focus on the 4 Es when it comes to enforcement.

We will not be conducting random vehicle or individual stops.

For more information, visit: https://t.co/nbwldme20S pic.twitter.com/yJaAtZzeGE

— Waterloo Regional Police (@WRPSToday) April 16, 2021

The post Good to Know, and Thank You TPS and WRP appeared first on Phantasmix.com.

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Wow, health care costs doubled, and that was before covid. Social costs went up as well. No comment on that one. Ok, maybe one: not enjoying the fruits of this particular increase in the form of “safe injection” sites on our doorstep.

What the hell is “other payments”? This category more than doubled as well.

And no surplus, obviously.

2008

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I recently started shopping at AliExpress. It’s a retail arm of the wholesale Alibaba website. They both let you shop directly from the manufacturers in Asia (primarily China), the difference is in the minimum quantities. The main draw, obviously, is low prices. Plus, at AliExpress most items are offered with free shipping.

The upside.

• Really really low prices
• Huge selection
• Shipping to over 200 countries
• Buyer protection guarantee

The downside.

• Long delivery times
• All shipments require signature, can be annoying if you shop a lot
• Sub-par item quality, descriptions are often misleading
• Time suck – much like with Amazon, large product selection is great, but it takes a lot of time to find what to Finally Buy! I suppose it’s still less time than going out to the mall to shop, but to me the mental strain is just huge.

I have so far received 4 items from four different sellers. I threw away 2 of these as they were unusable: one was advertised as leather but turned out to be polyurethane, the other was just ugly and smelled like burnt rubber tires. Of the remaining two items, one is “sort of OK” and one is great (love my tiny neodymium magnets). So the ratio so far is 50/50, or 25/75 if you’re really picky. Their buyer protection guarantee sounds good, but I haven’t taken advantage of it since the two items I discarded cost about $10 together. It wouldn’t be worth the time to fill out the complaint form, take pictures etc. Since I can’t whole-heartedly recommend the website, I’m not linking to it. Clean conscience and all. Here’s an example of an item that didn’t live up to my expectations. These sell at a local store for around $8-10. They are exactly as pictured: nice and plump, with no mold lines, and without any funky smell. This is also the photo that was used on the listing I fell for.

This is what I actually received from one AliExpress seller for about $2 including shipping – thin, badly made from a knocked off mold. In addition, visualize the most foul rubber smell that stays on your hands for the entire day, you can’t rinse it off. And, I got 2 white, 2 black, and 2 red ones although the listing pictured white, brown and green, which is what I wanted for my office.

How dare I expect more for two dollars? Well, the logic was that the “$8 one was made in China anyway. This is probably the same.” It wasn’t.

Business idea!

Click the images below to enlarge I came across a retail site with the office located in Canada. They sell these symbolic bracelet sets. Guess where I saw these first! Yep, at AliExpress. That’s a great markup. But I’m not tempted to open up a store of my own, that’s why I so willingly share with you my source I’ve been down that road before, 12 years ago. It was waaaay harder to find low cost items, but on the other hand it was easier to sell. Sometimes I can’t believe the stuff we were able to “move”. There wasn’t such a glut of items out there, not as much selection, not as much fatigue, and buyers weren’t as savvy.

Anyway, that’s the story. Caveat emptor.

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Toronto… Canada’s Los Angeles of sprawl. Its London of diversity. Its Seattle of real estate prices. Its San Francisco of bizarre political governance. Its Singapore of Chinese money laundering.

The post Toronto in a Nutshell appeared first on Phantasmix.com.