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If they keep selling people's stocks without their consent, then yeah, I'm pretty sure it'll stay until RH can buy better reviews. [edit] though there are som

If they keep selling people's stocks without their consent, then yeah, I'm pretty sure it'll stay until RH can buy better reviews. [edit] though there are some reports that the stocks were bought on margin, which makes it more(?) okay, I guess?

fennecfoxen 6y ago
> though there are some reports that the stocks were bought on margin, which makes it more(?) okay, I guess? https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Customer%20Margin%20and%20Short%20Account%20Agreement.pdf https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Custo... 4. Liquidation. In the event of the death of the Customer, or in the event the margin in any account in which the Customer has an interest shall in either Robinhood’s or the Introducing Broker’s discretion become unsatisfactory to either Robinhood or the Introducing Broker, or be deemed insufficient by either Robinhood or the Introducing Broker, Robinhood is hereby authorized; (a) to sell any or all securities or other property which Robinhood may hold for the Customer (either individually or jointly with others); (b) to buy any or all securities and other property which may be short in such accounts; and/or (c) to cancel any open orders and to close any or all outstanding contracts; all without demand for margin or additional margin, notice of sale or purchase, or other notice or advertisement, and that any prior demand or notice shall not be a waiver of its rights provided herein. (emphasis added, and if you like that there's an arbitration agreement too.) https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Margin%20Disclosure%20Statement.pdf https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Margi... WE CAN SELL YOUR SECURITIES OR OTHER ASSETS WITHOUT CONTACTING YOU. Some investors mistakenly believe that their brokerage firm must contact them for a margin call to be valid, and that their firm cannot liquidate securities or other assets in their accounts to meet the call unless the firm has contacted them first. This is not the case. Although we may attempt to notify you of margin calls, we are not required to do so. However, even if we have contacted you and provided a specific date to meet a margin call, we can still take necessary steps to protect our financial interests, including immediately selling the securities without notice to you. We may forcibly liquidate all or part of your account without prior notice, regardless of your intent to satisfy a margin call, in order to protect your interests or our interests. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO CHOOSE WHICH SECURITIES OR OTHER ASSETS IN YOUR ACCOUNT(S) ARE LIQUIDATED OR SOLD TO MEET A MARGIN CALL. Because the securities are collateral for the margin loan, we have the right to decide which security to sell in order to protect our interests. WE CAN INCREASE “HOUSE” MAINTENANCE MARGIN REQUIREMENTS AT ANY TIME AND ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PROVIDE YOU ADVANCE WRITTEN NOTICE. These changes in policy often take effect immediately and may result in the issuance of a maintenance margin call. Your failure to satisfy the call may require us to liquidate or sell securities in your account(s).
- freeone3000 6y ago
  That's referring to margin specifically, not a held position. There's a difference between margin trading and holding the stock in your name.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kranar 6y ago
    The loophole here is that all new Robinhood accounts are margin accounts by default. You have to go through a process to switch from a margin account to a cash account and I suspect 95% of Robinhood's customers have no idea what the difference is or why they'd ever want to do that. So Robinhood technically is allowed to do this as per the letter of the law, and now the question is whether Robinhood is violating any fiduciary duties they have to their customers.
    - lordnacho 6y ago
      But how many of the accounts have larger positions in GME than equity? It doesn't make sense to margin call or liquidate someone who is good for the whole amount. Also if someone has some leverage it's not reasonable to liquidate them completely.
      - forbiddenvoid 6y ago
        This is exactly why people should be outraged. The type of risk that requires a margin call isn't present by just holding long positions in a security. Unless you are trading options or selling short, your equity is equal to your positions, and no margin call should be necessary. They are literally using the margin call mechanic to force closures in positions that have no risk.
        jquery 6y ago
        Unlikely. Robinhood has something called ‘instant deposits’ which creates massive risk when used to buy something like GME with unsettled funds.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
e: I'm leaving my original comment below for posterity, but I learned upthread that I was substantially misinformed here. Robinhood accounts are by default margin accounts, and their documentation describes this in an incredibly misleading way (https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/robinhood-accounts/ https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/robinhood-accou...): > When you sign up for a new account, you’ll automatically start with a Robinhood Instant account, which is a margin account. This means you’ll have access to instant deposits and extended-hours trading. You also won’t have to wait for your funds to process when you sell stocks or make a deposit (up to $1,000). I stand by my claim that margin accounts necessarily require forced liquidation, but this is pretty indefensible. ----- If the stocks were bought on margin it's entirely non-objectionable. Forced liquidation is a well-known practice that's fundamental to margin accounts as a concept - without it, a margin account is just an unsecured loan, and nobody's going to offer the average margin trader a low-cost unsecured loan for stock speculation.
adrr 6y ago
Margin accounts have capital requirements. If you’re over leveraged, they will liquidate your positions to ensure you have capital. This is standard. If people didn’t know about this, they have no business with a margin account.
- forbiddenvoid 6y ago
  1. Robinhood accounts are all margin by default. Most novice investors don't know the difference. They should, but I would wager Robinhood doesn't spend a lot of time educating people about this. 2. Long positions (buying and holding stock) aren't leveraged. There is no capital risk to holding a stock. If the sales of GME are entirely based on other positions being underwater, then sure, but it seems at least some of the examples provided aren't in that situation.
  - matwood 6y ago
    I thought RH only allowed margin if you paid the monthly fee? Or, are you talking about margin for purposes of settling so you can trade again before a sale is fully settled?
  - jquery 6y ago
    > There is no capital risk to holding a stock. A broker can change margin maintenance requirements at any time, including for shares bought with margin. When using margin, a broker has wide latitude to liquidate positions of the account using margin.
  - adrr 6y ago
    https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/upgrading-to-gold/ https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/upgrading-to-go... Robinhood let’s you borrow money to buy stocks. If you borrow $10k to buy GME at $300 and it dropped to $100. There’s a risk to RH that you won’t be able to payback the loan. RH most likely will liquidate the position before it even hits $100 to mitigate the risk on the loan depending how leveraged you are.
beagle3 6y ago
The sells were appropriate if bought on margin (once the share price took a dive). The thing is, RobinHood refused “buy” order that were completely inline with the margin requirements, and that caused the share price to dive. Seems to be a coordinated move among all retail browsers (including IB according to people on this discussion - despite publicly claiming they are just hiking margins). Basically, as of this morning, retail clients could only sell, whereas institutional clients could buy and sell as they wish. Doesn’t sound remotely ok. In fact, sounds completely entirely not ok, and likely illegal (but I am not a lawyer)
- newacct583 6y ago
  > RobinHood refused “buy” order that were completely inline with the margin requirements, and that caused the share price to dive. This is just a conspiracy theory. It doesn't even make sense. If GME was objectively such a good bet, you really think that those institutional investors out there were simply ignoring it? That Robinhood's users alone were the sole reason for the speculative spike in this stock? This is a SCAM. Robinhood users were the VICTIMS. And I won't speak to their motives, and am no real fan, but the truth is Robinhood saved you people a ton of money by refusing those trades.
  - llampx 6y ago
    I call bullshit
  - beagle3 6y ago
    And yet, as soon as WeBull allowed it again, it went up quite a bit. So we have proof positive that RH cost these people very real money. What I’m saying is that you are provably wrong.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    In the modern world the right to waste money is held to be very sacred - I have always viewed casinos as a great money -> fun conversion machine for those who can sensibly enjoy it... but for those who can't there isn't anyone stopping them at the door and saying "We already have 90% of your money, why don't you go home and enjoy a quiet evening of netflix". The stock market has a long reputation of saying "Well, sucks to be you" when various scams are committed - even when a hedge fund manager burns through a bunch of retirement funds and then shows up at the company demanding their annual retainer so I am quite reluctant to buy that this one instance is when altruism is coming in to play. A bunch of people are choosing to loose a bit of their money in exchange for warm fuzzy feelings - I think it's absolutely idiotic but then again I don't tend to patronize casinos either. If there is someone behind this running a pump & dump scam they absolutely should be prosecuted as normal, but falling victim to a financial scam on the stock market is one of those properties capitalist libertarians always hold up and they can't change their mind just because this one instance ended up screwing them over instead.
forbiddenvoid 6y ago
It turns out that Robinhood accounts are margin by default, which is not really standard practice. I couldn't prove that this behavior (closing held positions without consent) was intended with that design, but it does feel pretty gnarly.

fennecfoxen 6y ago

> though there are some reports that the stocks were bought on margin, which makes it more(?) okay, I guess? https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Customer%20Margin%20and%20Short%20Account%20Agreement.pdf https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Custo... 4. Liquidation. In the event of the death of the Customer, or in the event the margin in any account in which the Customer has an interest shall in either Robinhood’s or the Introducing Broker’s discretion become unsatisfactory to either Robinhood or the Introducing Broker, or be deemed insufficient by either Robinhood or the Introducing Broker, Robinhood is hereby authorized; (a) to sell any or all securities or other property which Robinhood may hold for the Customer (either individually or jointly with others); (b) to buy any or all securities and other property which may be short in such accounts; and/or (c) to cancel any open orders and to close any or all outstanding contracts; all without demand for margin or additional margin, notice of sale or purchase, or other notice or advertisement, and that any prior demand or notice shall not be a waiver of its rights provided herein. (emphasis added, and if you like that there's an arbitration agreement too.) https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Margin%20Disclosure%20Statement.pdf https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20Margi... WE CAN SELL YOUR SECURITIES OR OTHER ASSETS WITHOUT CONTACTING YOU. Some investors mistakenly believe that their brokerage firm must contact them for a margin call to be valid, and that their firm cannot liquidate securities or other assets in their accounts to meet the call unless the firm has contacted them first. This is not the case. Although we may attempt to notify you of margin calls, we are not required to do so. However, even if we have contacted you and provided a specific date to meet a margin call, we can still take necessary steps to protect our financial interests, including immediately selling the securities without notice to you. We may forcibly liquidate all or part of your account without prior notice, regardless of your intent to satisfy a margin call, in order to protect your interests or our interests. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO CHOOSE WHICH SECURITIES OR OTHER ASSETS IN YOUR ACCOUNT(S) ARE LIQUIDATED OR SOLD TO MEET A MARGIN CALL. Because the securities are collateral for the margin loan, we have the right to decide which security to sell in order to protect our interests. WE CAN INCREASE “HOUSE” MAINTENANCE MARGIN REQUIREMENTS AT ANY TIME AND ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PROVIDE YOU ADVANCE WRITTEN NOTICE. These changes in policy often take effect immediately and may result in the issuance of a maintenance margin call. Your failure to satisfy the call may require us to liquidate or sell securities in your account(s).

freeone3000 6y ago
That's referring to margin specifically, not a held position. There's a difference between margin trading and holding the stock in your name.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Kranar 6y ago
  The loophole here is that all new Robinhood accounts are margin accounts by default. You have to go through a process to switch from a margin account to a cash account and I suspect 95% of Robinhood's customers have no idea what the difference is or why they'd ever want to do that. So Robinhood technically is allowed to do this as per the letter of the law, and now the question is whether Robinhood is violating any fiduciary duties they have to their customers.
  - lordnacho 6y ago
    But how many of the accounts have larger positions in GME than equity? It doesn't make sense to margin call or liquidate someone who is good for the whole amount. Also if someone has some leverage it's not reasonable to liquidate them completely.
    - forbiddenvoid 6y ago
      This is exactly why people should be outraged. The type of risk that requires a margin call isn't present by just holding long positions in a security. Unless you are trading options or selling short, your equity is equal to your positions, and no margin call should be necessary. They are literally using the margin call mechanic to force closures in positions that have no risk.
      - jquery 6y ago
        Unlikely. Robinhood has something called ‘instant deposits’ which creates massive risk when used to buy something like GME with unsettled funds.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

e: I'm leaving my original comment below for posterity, but I learned upthread that I was substantially misinformed here. Robinhood accounts are by default margin accounts, and their documentation describes this in an incredibly misleading way (https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/robinhood-accounts/ https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/robinhood-accou...): > When you sign up for a new account, you’ll automatically start with a Robinhood Instant account, which is a margin account. This means you’ll have access to instant deposits and extended-hours trading. You also won’t have to wait for your funds to process when you sell stocks or make a deposit (up to $1,000). I stand by my claim that margin accounts necessarily require forced liquidation, but this is pretty indefensible. ----- If the stocks were bought on margin it's entirely non-objectionable. Forced liquidation is a well-known practice that's fundamental to margin accounts as a concept - without it, a margin account is just an unsecured loan, and nobody's going to offer the average margin trader a low-cost unsecured loan for stock speculation.

adrr 6y ago

Margin accounts have capital requirements. If you’re over leveraged, they will liquidate your positions to ensure you have capital. This is standard. If people didn’t know about this, they have no business with a margin account.

forbiddenvoid 6y ago
1. Robinhood accounts are all margin by default. Most novice investors don't know the difference. They should, but I would wager Robinhood doesn't spend a lot of time educating people about this. 2. Long positions (buying and holding stock) aren't leveraged. There is no capital risk to holding a stock. If the sales of GME are entirely based on other positions being underwater, then sure, but it seems at least some of the examples provided aren't in that situation.
- matwood 6y ago
  I thought RH only allowed margin if you paid the monthly fee? Or, are you talking about margin for purposes of settling so you can trade again before a sale is fully settled?
- jquery 6y ago
  > There is no capital risk to holding a stock. A broker can change margin maintenance requirements at any time, including for shares bought with margin. When using margin, a broker has wide latitude to liquidate positions of the account using margin.
- adrr 6y ago
  https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/upgrading-to-gold/ https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/upgrading-to-go... Robinhood let’s you borrow money to buy stocks. If you borrow $10k to buy GME at $300 and it dropped to $100. There’s a risk to RH that you won’t be able to payback the loan. RH most likely will liquidate the position before it even hits $100 to mitigate the risk on the loan depending how leveraged you are.

beagle3 6y ago

The sells were appropriate if bought on margin (once the share price took a dive). The thing is, RobinHood refused “buy” order that were completely inline with the margin requirements, and that caused the share price to dive. Seems to be a coordinated move among all retail browsers (including IB according to people on this discussion - despite publicly claiming they are just hiking margins). Basically, as of this morning, retail clients could only sell, whereas institutional clients could buy and sell as they wish. Doesn’t sound remotely ok. In fact, sounds completely entirely not ok, and likely illegal (but I am not a lawyer)

newacct583 6y ago
> RobinHood refused “buy” order that were completely inline with the margin requirements, and that caused the share price to dive. This is just a conspiracy theory. It doesn't even make sense. If GME was objectively such a good bet, you really think that those institutional investors out there were simply ignoring it? That Robinhood's users alone were the sole reason for the speculative spike in this stock? This is a SCAM. Robinhood users were the VICTIMS. And I won't speak to their motives, and am no real fan, but the truth is Robinhood saved you people a ton of money by refusing those trades.
- llampx 6y ago
  I call bullshit
- beagle3 6y ago
  And yet, as soon as WeBull allowed it again, it went up quite a bit. So we have proof positive that RH cost these people very real money. What I’m saying is that you are provably wrong.
- munk-a 6y ago
  In the modern world the right to waste money is held to be very sacred - I have always viewed casinos as a great money -> fun conversion machine for those who can sensibly enjoy it... but for those who can't there isn't anyone stopping them at the door and saying "We already have 90% of your money, why don't you go home and enjoy a quiet evening of netflix". The stock market has a long reputation of saying "Well, sucks to be you" when various scams are committed - even when a hedge fund manager burns through a bunch of retirement funds and then shows up at the company demanding their annual retainer so I am quite reluctant to buy that this one instance is when altruism is coming in to play. A bunch of people are choosing to loose a bit of their money in exchange for warm fuzzy feelings - I think it's absolutely idiotic but then again I don't tend to patronize casinos either. If there is someone behind this running a pump & dump scam they absolutely should be prosecuted as normal, but falling victim to a financial scam on the stock market is one of those properties capitalist libertarians always hold up and they can't change their mind just because this one instance ended up screwing them over instead.

forbiddenvoid 6y ago

It turns out that Robinhood accounts are margin by default, which is not really standard practice. I couldn't prove that this behavior (closing held positions without consent) was intended with that design, but it does feel pretty gnarly.