6 ms·
Robinhood: At a Play Store Near You
- quiet-observer 11y agobest app ever
- tvanantwerp 11y agoI may be alone here, but I feel a little uncomfortable trading stocks solely on a mobile device. Maybe I'm just having an old man moment, but I'd rather do something like this on the desktop with easier simultaneous access to data and research.
- Artistry121 11y agoFidelity and its ilk have some serious advantages - but Robinhood makes it so easy and almost gamifies it. I use both - Robinhood for play, Fidelity for long-term stuff - and I found myself using Robinhood more when I had an iPhone.
- kcbanner 11y agoI have an HTC One ( the first one ) and this app is listed as incompatible. How do I find out why?
- profinger 11y agoIt's probably because you're running an old version of android. I don't know that you are but that is a likely reason.
- larrythedog 11y agoThe way they market this app makes me pretty concerned. It seems like they're advocating short-term trading -- pretty risky behavior. I guess they don't explicitly do this, but the nature of a mobile-only platform, with what looks like no portfolio/risk analysis tools screams short term. Also, the only real reason a commission-free account would be helpful is if you're trading pretty frequently or in very small amounts. I'd rather pay $10/trade for something like Fidelity, Etrade, or the like, and have access to some mediocre portfolio analysis, risk analysis, and research tools, than have only a Buy/Sell button. However, I'd bet that uninformed investors would see this deal and jump right in without considering these things. I guess my TLDR here is that a trading platform's selling point (for the general public) should be tools first, price second; not price first, aesthetics second.
- roymurdock 11y agoRE: short-term trading - all of the same time constraint rules apply (wait 3 days to transfer funds in and out, settle trades, etc.) as they do to a regular retail account which makes funds in the account too illiquid to be used for very short/risky plays. RE: No portfolio/beta analysis - this is a huge problem for me and I can't understand why they would intentionally not build at least a simple portfolio tracker in so you can analyze your investments over time. I use the app because I don't want to pay the fees, but I've taken to tracking investments in excel which is annoying when it would be pretty trivial to add functionality to the app.
- larrythedog 11y agoRobinhood definitely takes the cake for ease-of-use, but companies like Interactive Brokers offer very low commissions, and a much more comprehensive tool. May be worth checking out if you're a somewhat sophisticated investor. As for your response to the short-term trading concerns. Transfer restrictions don't really matter here. I can still buy/sell stocks as much as I want. I don't have to cash out to my bank in order to trade SPY 10 times a day.
- roymurdock 11y ago
- yummyfajitas 11y agoI just installed Robinhood. $0 commissions is a pretty nice rate, so I'll probably transfer my IRA to them. (For prop trading I'm on IB.) But why such a user hostile interface? It's almost as if this thing is made for a techcrunch press release rather than actual use. When signing up, I can't tilt the screen into "I have big thumbs" mode. And mobile-only trading - no webapp. It also only asks me to type my password once on my mobile device, with my fat thumbs. I'm sure that this sounds great to a techcrunch journalist who only has a 401k - "mobile trading for the flexible millenial workforce" - but it's pretty terrible for anyone who actually wants to make real trades. Also simply lovely; I look at a stock chart in the mobile app, and I can't see data older than 1 year. The default is 1 day. But I can watch SPY's last price ticking up and down in realtime, woot! I'm sure I'll also get push notifications for trades. (Disclaimer: I haven't tried to trade yet). I really hope this is a "lean startup" only beta and will be rapidly improved. Right now, the price tag is the only good thing about it.
- fixxer 11y agoYeah, I thought this too. I pinged them for API access; I get the feeling they are looking for application partners and building an ecosystem. Kind of an interesting biz model.
- ahh 11y agoIf the commission rate affects your IRA return, you are trading far too much.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoThe IRA is the place to make highly volatile investments that might incur large capital gains taxes. In contrast, your ordinary brokerage is the place for buy&hold + occasional rebalance.
- ahh 11y agoVolatile \neq frequently traded; tax is not affected by commission rate. I find it highly unlikely that almost anyone should trade anything frequently, even in the weirder corners of their portfolio.
- LukeB_UK 11y agoIt says this is incompatible with all my devices, I have a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 7. Is it because I'm in the UK?
- jbrooksuk 11y agoLikely... Robin Hood is not in the UK yet.
- iamben 11y agoYup, says to me "not available in your country" (UK).
- yummyfajitas 11y agoI signed up for robinhood on a Nexus 4. I'm currently in India. (Though my accounts are American.)
- tljr 11y agoSteal from the rich, give to the poor...nah just let americans play with the stock market a bit easier.....which is actually (way) closer to 'steal from the poor, give to the rich'! Hoodwink Robin, more like.
- acyacy 11y agoRobin Hood is dangerous for the young millennial. Short term trading is really risky and if you have some cash saved up it can make a big difference in the longer term if you don't blow it up or lose it. Being young matters. If you're in Australia and looking for something longer term access to Berkshire Hathaway shares or ETFs https://getfirststep.com https://getfirststep.com is another service too [no individual shares] its more like wealthfront/betterment/acorns. They fractionalise the investment so you don't need huge amounts which is quite nice.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lewisl9029 11y agoBut short term trading at traditional brokerages is even worse. You loose money to commissions in addition to whatever you loose through trading. There's nothing stopping someone from doing long-term investing with ETFs in Robinhood, is there?
- rory 11y agoThis is exactly what I do personally, and RobinHood allows me to buy gradually in small increments to minimize fluctuation in my cash emergency fund. If I were to buy $100 in ETF shares at a traditional brokerage I'd start down something like 10% on fees alone.
- findjashua 11y agolooking at your post history, I see your previous post also mentioned the same company. If you are affiliated with them, please add a disclaimer at the bottom.
- acyacy 11y agoI'm on their early signup list. It's being made at my uni (Uni of Sydney) at their accelerator. I just love the app, It can't be wrong to share this.
- Someone1234 11y agoI read the "How we make our money" page, and if I am reading it right, they only make money on the uninvested balances? It is free ($0) to invest and free to de-vest ($0, 0%), is that right? Seems too good to be true... Also how legal is this company? I've read about small StartUps based on the stock market who then wind up getting in trouble with the FTC. Honestly if this is free investment, then I might start doing some micro-investment. I am been put off the stock market by the overheads of investing/de-vesting (e.g. $20/trade). Although the hassle of filing taxes might still put me off.
- atburrow 11y agoI believe they also make money from the market makers. MMs will pay for companies like Robinhood to send the flow of trades their way.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 11y ago> I've read about small StartUps based on the stock market who then wind up getting in trouble with the FTC. The one's I've seen get in trouble have been in trouble with the SEC rather than the FTC.
- lewisl9029 11y agoInterest from margin accounts is another one. They don't have margin accounts yet, but once they do, that could become a fairly significant revenue stream.
- Someone1234 11y agoTrue. But if you're interested in them for micro-investing, that seems incompatible with borrowing to do it. Although I'm sure someone will want to borrow to invest...
- azianmike 11y ago
- fixxer 11y agoDoes anyone else have concerns about the linked bank account? I refuse to give up credentials.
- omouse 11y agoRobinhood is limited to users in America right?