When Robinhood was first announced a few years ago, I was excited that the retail brokerage industry was becoming more accessible for a number of reasons. Most

When Robinhood was first announced a few years ago, I was excited that the retail brokerage industry was becoming more accessible for a number of reasons. Most obviously, we live in a capitalistic society, and inherently those who are able to make an equity investment (whether it be in a home, a small business, a startup, or a publicly listed company) are giving themselves a better chance at long-term financial freedom if they are also able to properly diversify their investments. Robinhood still provides a great service to those who have a relatively small amount of money to create a diversified custom portfolio, but I would highly recommend against Robinhood Gold in today's interest rate environment. If you are 25 or younger, which is a core demographic of Robinhood, you are much better of with Interactive Brokers for any type of margin account. The UI/UX leaves a lot to be desired, but you will likely save a lot of money. Let's say that you have $2000 to invest and want to borrow another $1000 for a total investment of $3000. Since you understand the importance of long term investing as well as diversification, let's assume you are going only going to make 10 trades per year (if you are making more than 10 trades per year with a $3000 account you should seriously reconsider your investment strategy). For simplicity, let's also assume your portfolio balance maintains a $3k balance. Each year you will pay: Interactive Brokers: (max($1 x trades per month, $3) * 12) + 1.9% * $1000 = $55 per year Robinhood: $6 * 12 = $72 Of course, this is a very specific comparison, but I encourage you to look at the total cost of a margin account for your specific situation: https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal/RHF%20Retail%20Commisions%20and%20Fees%20Schedule.pdf https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal... https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1595 https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1595 I would also highly discourage anyone from trading outside of 9:30 AM to 4PM ET unless there was major news on a specific company (up to 4:15PM for the most actively traded etfs given the futures market keeps the bid/ask spreads tight). Finally, I would encourage you to read more about the systemic risks ETFs pose to the market before deciding to use them as an investment vehicle. They provide great utility to small investors, but also contribute to liquidity risks that are still not fully understood/tested.