Thanks to a September 2019 pricing war, most online brokers cut their baseline stock and ETF commissions to $0 per trade. No question, this was a big win for everyday investors. By moving to $0 per trade for stocks and ETFs, some online brokers gave up a substantial source of revenue. In fact, the move to $0 cost several online brokerages hundreds of millions in lost annualized revenue. After the news hit, based on Wall Street's response, it was very apparent that tweaking the PFOF dial alone was not going to be able to make up the difference. While the latest price war was not all cupcakes and rainbows (squeezed margins put fresh pressure on the industry to consolidate further), as far as trading costs go, everyday investors came out on top.