Josh Rachlis, a voice actor and podcaster in Ottawa, estimates that tips from social media sources have left him financially behind where he’d like to be.Keito Newman/The Globe and Mail
By the spring of 2026, do-it-yourself investors could get an alert from their brokerage account if a stock they own is experiencing irregular trading activity or unusual volatility.
The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) is finalizing guideline changes that would give DIY investors tools to help them make informed decisions, but without a brokerage crossing the line of providing specific advice.
The new tools, which will be available at discount brokerages, could include price or volatility alerts on stocks, self-assessment questionnaires to help investors figure out their risk tolerance and model portfolios to help them build a diversified portfolio.
The organization’s looming changes seek to address DIY investors’ growing reliance on “unregulated” sources of investment information, including social media and financial content creators who are called finfluencers.
“We know with finfluencers there definitely is some good stuff out there – general things like how to make a budget, or the basics of financial literacy [are] really good and should be consumed by people,” said Alexandra Williams, vice-president of strategy, innovation and stakeholder protection at CIRO.
“Where you get into places like … risk tolerance, or ‘buy these different stocks,’ that crosses the boundary.”
With more DIY investors, how much advice should online brokers be allowed to give?
Ms. Williams expects the guidance to be finalized by March or April. The organization also highlighted portfolio rebalancing tools, filtering mechanisms to search for specific types of stocks and alerts about analyst notes or other news about a stock investors own as some of the “decision-making supports” discount brokerages will be able to roll out.
She said she believes the new system will “vastly improve the experience for the online investor.” Discount brokerages have been eager for the changes and many are expected to make some new features available, although they are not required to.
To date, DIY trading platforms have largely not provided tools or educational information to their investors. CIRO’s old guidance stated these could be seen as recommendations on how to invest.
Discount brokerages are prohibited from providing advice to clients under regulatory rules. But in the absence of trustworthy information from the platforms clients invest with, social media and financial content creators have largely filled the void.
Half of Canadians have used social media for investment information, according to a survey commissioned by the Canadian Securities Administrators, jumping to 82 per cent among younger investors.
Investors want advice in a volatile market. ‘Finfluencers’ are trying to fill the gap
Research by the Ontario Securities Commission in May found that Canadians who made financial decisions based on a finfluencer were 12 times more likely to have been scammed on social media, and a June survey by Tangerine found one-quarter of people who followed finfluencers had lost money on bad advice.
“It’s really easy to condescend to people who might fall for the wrong advice, or to discount advice when it comes from a finfluencer who happens to get it right. But just like everybody who’s compelled to buy new bed sheets or earphones, all of us are swayed by social media,” said Kendra Thompson, founder and principal of Epok Advice, a consulting firm focused on the future of financial advice.
Josh Rachlis, a 53-year-old voice actor and podcaster in Ottawa, said he has been swayed by stock-picking blogs, forums and financial influencers. His trading results varied: While some holdings soared, others gained temporarily only to drop below the value of his initial investment, or tanked immediately.
Cumulatively, Mr. Rachlis estimates that tips from social media sources have left him financially behind where he’d like to be.
Josh Rachlis said he has been swayed by stock-picking blogs, forums and financial influencers.Keito Newman/The Globe and Mail
CIRO’s Ms. Williams said the self-regulatory organization is exploring ways to enable “online advice” to help provide trustworthy financial advice for Canadians. “That’s like recommended, tailored advice, I’ll call it, online by registered firms, maybe not with a person [involved],” she said.
Some Canadians are getting good information from finfluencers. Nathan Kennedy, a Canadian content creator who focuses on personal finances and careers, said that while the finfluencer world can seem like the “Wild Wild West,” many content creators work hard to do right by their audience, and call out bad actors.
Mr. Kennedy recently received his accredited financial counsellor Canada designation, partly for continuous learning and partly to bolster his credibility as a trusted source of financial information. He said it’s something other creators have asked him about.
“We don’t love being randomsportsguy69 on the internet. We wanna have something to us,” he said.
Investors navigating the world of finfluencer advice should be mindful of the speed at which a content creator says wealth generation will happen, Mr. Kennedy said.
The finfluencer’s class is in session. Is it worth paying for?
“If they’re telling you it’s gonna happen quickly, that’s likely not accurate or at best mis-framed. Good, meaningful things in life take a lot of time,” he said. He also recommended stress-testing a creator’s message against what other creators and outside educational resources say.
Danica Torrens, a 25-year-old Vancouverite who’s attending university in London in Britain, said following a content creator helped her learn to budget and invest.
Ms. Torrens bought the creator’s budgeting template, which she said she uses daily, and has since launched an investing portfolio through a robo-adviser.
The creator Ms. Torrens follows is transparent about her own finances, and also posts videos to help her followers. Ms. Torrens said that as a young person living with student debt but still trying to save for the future, she appreciates that the creator takes a “realistic” approach to finances.
“Going to school and knowing I’d take on debt, I felt more confident. Debt [doesn’t feel] scary. Yes, you have to be responsible about it, but debt can also help you achieve things,” she said. “The main thing is my anxiety around finances has gone way down.”