The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that fractional stock trading, offered by a small but growing number of brokers, lets you buy shares with pretty much any amount of money you have on hand. The Globe's Rob Carrick writes that advisers, fund companies and others in the investing establishment may tell you this sounds like a bad thing because it opens the door for people to invest frivolously. They are right about that, but a greater good will be served. Mr. Carrick argues that fractional trading is the next stage in democratizing stock market investing, along with zero-commission trading and, further back, the advent of discount brokers in the 1980s and on-line trading in the 1990s. Fractional shares have been available for years in the U.S. market, where brokers compete harder and deliver better innovations faster. In Canada, investing upstart Wealthsimple introduced fractional trading in 2021 and Interactive Brokers did likewise in 2023. The mainstreaming of fractional trading did not begin until August, when TD Direct Investing and the TD Easy Trade app began offering this service. TD Bank is to digital investing as Jupiter is to the planets: If TD decides to offer fractional shares, it is a thing.