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I tried them and it is the most amateurish stock broker I have ever touched in my life. There are no metrics for any of the stocks. The graphs are not annotated

I tried them and it is the most amateurish stock broker I have ever touched in my life. There are no metrics for any of the stocks. The graphs are not annotated, the spread seems to be inflated (as they probably make money with it). Also as said higher in the comments, if you are not paying you are most probably the product. And I don't want my private investment informations to be sold as data to BigCo. Paying x$ per transaction is a small price to pay to not have your data all over. They might be a good answer for newbies that want to spend 100$ on a stock for the first time, but for anything else I will stay with Ameritrade. Thanks

mortehu 8y ago
> the spread seems to be inflated (as they probably make money with it) The Order Protection Rule of Regulation NMS makes this illegal (during regular trading hours).
- csomar 8y ago
  Yeah am wondering if the OP means that robinhood is playing privileged market maker?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Teodolfo 8y ago
  Execution quality matters and given enough order flow a they can still match client orders to make a profit without giving a worse price than NBBO.
  - physguy1123 8y ago
    That's easier said than done. If you don't already have proper market making infrastructure and strategies you'll probably lose money trying to do that. Add in market makers paying per order and it doesn't make sense
paulpauper 8y ago
Ameritrade is a really bad broker. excessively high fees..all sorts of shady stuff with option order fill. Tons of online complaints. I have not used Robinhood but I cannot imagine it being worse than TDAmeritrade or any broker being worse than TDAmeritrade. If you trade with sums larger than $50k, use a professional broker such as Interactive Brokers, which institutional clients use.
- vostok 8y ago
  Interactive brokers seems quite expensive, doesn't offer trading on swap, and has quite a few other downsides. I doubt that it's used by many serious institutional customers.
  - dd36 8y ago
    It has or at least had really cheap margin rates.
    - vostok 8y ago
      Margin seems pretty expensive too and AFAIK they auto liquidate you rather than letting you meet the call. That's not great in both dimensions.
      - durkie 8y ago
        Who do you like that's cheaper? IBs margin rates max out around 2% in the US, which seems quite low.
        vostok 8y ago
        The best tier is about 30bps over fed funds or libor, doesn't matter in the current environment. I've seen better from major banks. This is on top of the other downsides that I mentioned. It would be fine if the financing terms were worse, but everything else was better as long as your total costs are lower.
      - 8y ago
tehlike 8y ago
Interactive brokers... simple but sophisticated.
webdevatlurk 8y ago
> They might be a good answer for newbies that want to spend 100$ on a stock for the first time, but for anything else I will stay with Ameritrade. Thanks I don't think you're their target audience. Their marketing materials say things like "democratize markets", "investing for the rest of us" and "learn to invest in the stock market". Also notice that the screenshots of their app feature portfolios with low dollar amounts, compared to the larger dollar amounts the big-boy brokers use as examples in their marketing. Because they're targeting newbies, and because of their behavior in that context, I think Robinhood wants to be your bookie more than they want to be your broker. The marketing pitch on their landing page reads "Robinhood lets you learn to invest in the stock market for free.", but the updates they've introduced while I've been paying attention to their app seem to be aimed at encouraging people to do risky, stupid things with their money. I assume they plan to monetize this somehow. What follows are some examples of things I think are pretty scummy, given that Robinhood's target user is an investment newbie: - They pressure new accounts into paying a monthly fee for what are essentially margin trading accounts, but the vast majority of people should not be trading on margin. - They promote aggregated news stories from crap outlets like seekingalpha to their users, but curiously not educational material with sound investment advice. Another indication that their pitch about learning, which probably makes newbies feel safer using RH as a platform, is insencere. - They added the ability to trade cryptocurrencies a short time back. The vast majority of people should not be investing in cryptocurrency. I tend to agree with Nicholas Weaver that most coin funds/offerings are basically scams or thefts waiting to happen. The values of the coins are volatile, and what happens if governments decide to make it difficult to exchange them for desirable currency? At least you can buy drugs on TOR, I guess? - They recently added option trading. The vast majority of people should not be trading options. It's probably closer to straight up gambling than buying stock at random. If they really wanted to open up markets to any average Joe with a smartphone and help them learn to invest, rather than encourage them to lose all their money, they wouldn't be prioritizing the things they have. Just for contrast, you know what simple things Robinhood users can't do? They can't check the managment fees when looking at a fund. They also can't sort their portfolio into short and long term holdings before choosing to sell stock.
closeparen 8y ago
It’s not just your information that’s the product, it’s your order flow. Professionals are willing to pay extra for the right of first refusal on the other side of Robinhood trades because Robinhood users are (on average) especially active and incompetent traders.
et2o 8y ago
I have a hard time believing that the spread is inflated. The SEC would not allow that. I agree the app could be better, but then again, is it really a wise decision to research companies through your Broker's phone anyway?
vasilipupkin 8y ago
And schwab doesn't collect your data ? Of course, it does AND you are paying for trades.

mortehu 8y ago

> the spread seems to be inflated (as they probably make money with it) The Order Protection Rule of Regulation NMS makes this illegal (during regular trading hours).

csomar 8y ago
Yeah am wondering if the OP means that robinhood is playing privileged market maker?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Teodolfo 8y ago
Execution quality matters and given enough order flow a they can still match client orders to make a profit without giving a worse price than NBBO.
- physguy1123 8y ago
  That's easier said than done. If you don't already have proper market making infrastructure and strategies you'll probably lose money trying to do that. Add in market makers paying per order and it doesn't make sense

paulpauper 8y ago

Ameritrade is a really bad broker. excessively high fees..all sorts of shady stuff with option order fill. Tons of online complaints. I have not used Robinhood but I cannot imagine it being worse than TDAmeritrade or any broker being worse than TDAmeritrade. If you trade with sums larger than $50k, use a professional broker such as Interactive Brokers, which institutional clients use.

vostok 8y ago
Interactive brokers seems quite expensive, doesn't offer trading on swap, and has quite a few other downsides. I doubt that it's used by many serious institutional customers.
- dd36 8y ago
  It has or at least had really cheap margin rates.
  - vostok 8y ago
    Margin seems pretty expensive too and AFAIK they auto liquidate you rather than letting you meet the call. That's not great in both dimensions.
    - durkie 8y ago
      Who do you like that's cheaper? IBs margin rates max out around 2% in the US, which seems quite low.
      - vostok 8y ago
        The best tier is about 30bps over fed funds or libor, doesn't matter in the current environment. I've seen better from major banks. This is on top of the other downsides that I mentioned. It would be fine if the financing terms were worse, but everything else was better as long as your total costs are lower.
    - 8y ago

tehlike 8y ago

Interactive brokers... simple but sophisticated.

webdevatlurk 8y ago

> They might be a good answer for newbies that want to spend 100$ on a stock for the first time, but for anything else I will stay with Ameritrade. Thanks I don't think you're their target audience. Their marketing materials say things like "democratize markets", "investing for the rest of us" and "learn to invest in the stock market". Also notice that the screenshots of their app feature portfolios with low dollar amounts, compared to the larger dollar amounts the big-boy brokers use as examples in their marketing. Because they're targeting newbies, and because of their behavior in that context, I think Robinhood wants to be your bookie more than they want to be your broker. The marketing pitch on their landing page reads "Robinhood lets you learn to invest in the stock market for free.", but the updates they've introduced while I've been paying attention to their app seem to be aimed at encouraging people to do risky, stupid things with their money. I assume they plan to monetize this somehow. What follows are some examples of things I think are pretty scummy, given that Robinhood's target user is an investment newbie: - They pressure new accounts into paying a monthly fee for what are essentially margin trading accounts, but the vast majority of people should not be trading on margin. - They promote aggregated news stories from crap outlets like seekingalpha to their users, but curiously not educational material with sound investment advice. Another indication that their pitch about learning, which probably makes newbies feel safer using RH as a platform, is insencere. - They added the ability to trade cryptocurrencies a short time back. The vast majority of people should not be investing in cryptocurrency. I tend to agree with Nicholas Weaver that most coin funds/offerings are basically scams or thefts waiting to happen. The values of the coins are volatile, and what happens if governments decide to make it difficult to exchange them for desirable currency? At least you can buy drugs on TOR, I guess? - They recently added option trading. The vast majority of people should not be trading options. It's probably closer to straight up gambling than buying stock at random. If they really wanted to open up markets to any average Joe with a smartphone and help them learn to invest, rather than encourage them to lose all their money, they wouldn't be prioritizing the things they have. Just for contrast, you know what simple things Robinhood users can't do? They can't check the managment fees when looking at a fund. They also can't sort their portfolio into short and long term holdings before choosing to sell stock.

closeparen 8y ago

It’s not just your information that’s the product, it’s your order flow. Professionals are willing to pay extra for the right of first refusal on the other side of Robinhood trades because Robinhood users are (on average) especially active and incompetent traders.

et2o 8y ago

I have a hard time believing that the spread is inflated. The SEC would not allow that. I agree the app could be better, but then again, is it really a wise decision to research companies through your Broker's phone anyway?

vasilipupkin 8y ago

And schwab doesn't collect your data ? Of course, it does AND you are paying for trades.