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AOC considering hearing over RobinhoodApp decision to block purchasers of GME
- kortilla 6y agoI hope she doesn’t get involved much. Her inquiries are less about fact finding and more about owning the corps because capitalism is bad. This will just become a stupid political grandstanding forum.
- usr1987 6y agonot a fan of her, but she is right on this one!!!
- s_dev 6y agoThe fact that Ted Cruz and AOC completely agree on this shows you how unprecedented this all is.
- threevox 6y agoExactly - it really feels like a watershed moment of some kind, though I'm not exactly sure how
- Larrikin 6y agoIt's a super simple non partisan issue that can get him some press that isn't about his sedition
- krapp 6y agoAbout that... https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1354848253729234944 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1354848253729234944
- philosopher1234 6y agoAOC is such a firebrand. I love it. Not a lot of politicians who give me the sense that they're actually fighting for me.
- kortilla 6y agoHow does that tweet make you think she is fighting for you and not just for publicity?
- Larrikin 6y agoWords have context around them
- philosopher1234 6y agoWhy would it make me think any different? She's right.
- kortilla 6y agoBecause she’s been there for quite some time now and achieved very little legislatively. The extreme grandstanding for her Twitter followers got her boxed out by her own party. She’s now just the lady with the socialist hot take for the evening news without any real means to change anything.
- 6y ago
- pdevr 6y agoAgree. They, of course, have their own reasons for doing this. But regardless, I feel it is a very good thing to happen. If influential people from both parties can work together for issues like this, it will make the world a better and fairer place for the middle class and the poor.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wtfiswiththis 6y agoWhy is that guy even a subject? What happen to Republicans where they decided that nepotism was their bag? People need to leave the TV show host family in the past unless it's about prosecuting them for finance crimes and bankrolling/inciting sedition.
- pdevr 6y agoAnd Rashida Tlaib and Donald Trump Jr too. I am so glad to see legislators and politicians from both sides, regardless of their motivations, getting together on the side of the people. For the people, you know.
- wtfiswiththis 6y agoI'm sorry did you just call one of the Trump kids a politician?
- danesparza 6y agoWait -- Ted Cruz agrees with this? Do you have a tweet link or an article?
- throwanem 6y agohttps://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1354833603943931905 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1354833603943931905
- npmaile 6y agoThis has happened before, and is a great litmus test for something that is either very bad or very good.
- koheripbal 6y agoMore importantly, neither heads of the party agree. It's more like the extremists vs the centrists.
- newacct583 6y agoYes, but... they're both wrong. The trades that Robinhood blocked were objectively bad trades, and the people they stopped from buying would almost certainly have lost all that money. Now, I agree that there's a good first principles argument (and also a bad populist one) that people should be allowed to trade their own money into scams if they want. But the idea of proving damages here based on the idea that GME was going to CONTINUE TO GO UP after a 500% increase triggered by a short squeeze is just insane, sorry.
- brentm 6y ago"The trades that Robinhood blocked were objectively bad trades" Seriously? Do you want brokers making this call? That is not their job. Let people learn the hard way, that is what the markets are for. Now, don't let them do it on margin but if you're going to plow your savings into GME at $450 a share then I am sorry but it's your own fault for not doing any homework at all.
- ne0flex 6y agoI agree that this is how it should be, but then we'll inevitably end up with a bunch morons who lost their money and then demand the government to right them. It's a lose-lose situation.
- s_dev 6y ago"This is Wall-street Dr. Burry, if you offer us free money, we're going to take it" The notion that an exchange would protect a trader from trades is laughably absurd.
- adoxyz 6y agoThis is a bad take. There's millions of bad trades you can make. Should Robinhood block all of those as well?
- N1H1L 6y agoAlso how do you quantify a bad trade? How much lost money? I trade on Robinhood too (not GME though), and just two weeks back I lost money on Nio stock. Is that a bad trade? Should Robinhood have stopped me from buying that stock?
- Dirlewanger 6y agoIt reveals that the whole "left vs. right" culture war is a massive sham designed to occupy and waste the all the plebian's attentions and get eyeballs on advertisers while the rich and powerful sit back and laugh. And people already downvoting me...lol. Do you not realize you're just willing pawns?
- adventured 6y agoWait a minute. Are those big tech hearings not going to amount to anything? Approximately the exact same thing AOC's fake hearing/s will amount to. It's nothing more than populist grandstanding.
- lainga 6y agoCruz agrees with AOC. AOC took the opportunity to tell Cruz he "almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago": https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1354848253729234944 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1354848253729234944
- tyrust 6y agoHolding someone accountable for their actions longer than one press cycle is a good thing.
- sgregnt 6y agoIt's not just Robingood! I'm on Schwab and they blocked trading with GME this morning (didn't try it but SELL might still be open)
- smnrchrds 6y agoI think TD Ameritrade did the same.
- vorpalhex 6y agoRobinHood had to of known this was a potential outcome or they actually have the most inept management possible. I don't know how they plan on weathering this storm given how much of a public enemy they've made themselves into overnight.
- hkougju 6y agoUnfortunately there is no real alternative to RH, not one which makes buying options so easy. RH is counting on that, that only a small percentage of users will leave them.
- 0x426577617265 6y agoSuch an ironic company name given the current situation.
- karmakaze 6y agoTrue colors.
- purple_ferret 6y agoYou get what you pay for with a 'free' app
- bordercases 6y agoTrade execution was locked on TD Ameritrade (and I think Interactive Brokers?) as well.
- tempaccount2342 6y agoscotia itrade has also been reporting that they're down due to the volume of trades. The 'trade' button on the toolbar is gone... but trades are still going through if you use the 'make a trade' option in the dropdown next to the trading account balances on the accounts screen pretty sketchy
- kllrnohj 6y agoIt was not. Margins & shorts were locked on TD Ameritrade, but you can still buy.
- paulddraper 6y agoNo, they charge.
- Jonnax 6y agoWhat can the financial services committee realistically do to Robinhood?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jhny 6y agoProbably not much, but it's a clear sign that their users should go somewhere else.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hkougju 6y agoIt's all fun and games until people with yachts start losing money.
- modeitsch 6y agoI hope that Robinhood will pay the price, It’s the same big tech problem
- morpheuskafka 6y agoVery strange, I would have expected the opposite reaction. Every time people lose money on Robinhood they blame them for not screening clients appropriately, letting them invest more than their risk tolerance, etc. This is definitely abnormal, speculative conditions (i.e. anyone who is a normal buy and hold, value, income, etc investor does not need to be entering a position on those stocks right now). Personally, I think they should have left trading open in cash accounts, but it is completely reasonable to block purchases of high risk shares especially on margin. Same as many brokerages limit OTCs, penny stocks, F shares, etc. If someone really wants to buy more, it only takes a few minutes to open an account with another online firm. If they hadn't allowed sales and potentially prevented someone from stopping a loss that would be a much bigger deal, but for some reason AOC specifically called this out as suspicious.
- Lambdanaut 6y ago> If someone really wants to buy more, it only takes a few minutes to open an account with another online firm. Apparently for most brokers there is a waiting period of multiple days before trading becomes available.
- paulgb 6y agoThe ironic thing is that the end result of this will probably be a ban on payment for order flow which will destroy the commission-free trading model. We’ll go back to paying $5/trade or whatever and everyone (except HFT) will ostensibly be happy.
- akvadrako 6y agoIt's not $5 a trade. Look at IBKR rates; most US trades are well under a dollar.
- paulgb 6y agoIt looks like on their pro product $1 is the minimum, so most retail trades would be $1 but not well under that. Their “lite” offering is free but subsidized by PFOF.
- akvadrako 6y agoLook here: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=stocks2 https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=sto... USD 0.0035 / share, min $0.35 / trade.
- paulgb 6y agoThanks, you're right. I was looking at their "fixed" price structure, I wasn't aware that "tiered" was an option. You've actually changed my mind on this; eliminating PFOF wouldn't be as bad for retail customers as I initially thought.
- Out_of_Characte 6y agoI would never have thought that the political divide would be broken by reddit/discord "amateur" investors. Ted Cruz, AOC, Donald trump jr (Shame on twitter for banning Trump) ALL agree that it is probaly morally wrong to prevent amateur traders from betting against hedge funds. Hedge funds shouldn't be bankrupted by a single loss like this. Its unacceptable. Capitalistic greed shouldn't be bailed out, the people bailing them out shouldn't have a position on the issue as well.
- floor2 6y agoI know everyone is excited to bring out their pitchforks, but let's take a moment to consider this from an objective position. Imagine a broker knowingly profits from executing trades that are part of a market manipulation- the SEC can and does come after them with huge fines. Usually it's years later in the unwinding of some shady hedge fund or corrupt sovereign wealth fund or pump&dump operation. In this case, it's not a boiler room in New Jersey or a Malaysian government insider manipulating the market, it's a bunch of different people on twitter and reddit. It seems perfectly reasonable that the brokerage firms who are complicit in this have legitimate fears that the SEC will come after them later, and so are trying to limit the risk that they're deemed culpable.
- N1H1L 6y agoI agree with Robinhood's fears on principle. What however riles up people (legitimately IMO) is that larger funds making equally suspect trades are basically let off with a slap on the wrist. A strong argument could be made that Tesla's stocks last year have been pumped up irrationally by funds last year too, and if a market correction comes the funds behind it will face zero to minimal consequences. Same in 2008. At the end of the day, the differential rules for individual traders and big funds riles people up.
- piva00 6y agoHow could they be liable though? This is a black swan, there were no risk models predicting this, Robinhood probably didn't have a policy for market manipulation done in a decentralised and diffuse way, probably because it was never done. It's really hard to objectively defend Robinhood, it's not their job to be the gatekeeper for millions of small fish trading some peanuts. It's quite patronising.