5 ms·

Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols. Why is Robinhood being singled out? Also, considering 99.9% of peop

Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols. Why is Robinhood being singled out? Also, considering 99.9% of people jumping on the bandwagon have absolutely no idea what they're doing, they'll probably thank RH down the road for preventing them from losing all their money.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Robinhood was the first.
Avalaxy 6y ago
DeGiro is still good. Bought GME there today.
- janmo 6y ago
  I also use DEGIRO, and it is a good broker, it doesn't do this scammy pay for order flow thing that Robinhood and Trade republic are doing, that said, I didn't buy GME and I would not recommend buying it.
  - mcv 6y ago
    It is super risky, but there's a definite path to profit here: the short-sellers sold too much stock. 140% of the shares, it appears, which means shares were borrowed, sold, and then borrowed from the buyer it was sold to and sold again. And when all those shorts run out, the short-sellers need to have bought shares back again. With share prices this high, they're going to have to pay a lot of money for them, and people holding shares could make a ton of profit. But it's definitely risky. You could lose a lot of money. Many of the people buying are also doing it to stick it to the hedge funds and give them a taste of their own medicine.
the_drunkard 6y ago
> Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols. Can you be more specific? Robinhood & Webull are the only two that I'm aware of.
- crookshanked 6y ago
  TD Ameritrade is preventing me from opening positions right now.
  - totony 6y ago
    TD Canada has prevented some forms of orders (e.g. market buy), but not limit buy - I think this isn't so bad as their clients might expect the quoted price and get screwed at open because of volatility
- andrewmunsell 6y ago
  Ally was as well (I am not sure who fills the orders), but Fidelity was still working for me.
- NotzoCoolKid 6y ago
  Tastyworks also blocked opening new positions.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  tastyworks went to close-only @ 11:39AM per an email, and opened it back up at 3:12PM today. They blamed Apex clearing, which is the custodian for tastyworks accounts.
- nannal 6y ago
  212 did this aswell.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
adrr 6y ago
I am so curious what the long term plan for GME is. Is it to hold the long term? If it’s not, what are the plans to unwind?
- sveme 6y ago
  At some point those shorts are due - if the owner of the shorts doesn't hold the necessary stocks, it's going to be expensive. That's my understanding. What happens afterwards? No ideas. Some people want to see hedge funds burn, I would not mind that either.
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Short sales do not work like that. You can have a short position indefinitely, as long as you pay the margin interest and meet the margin maintenance requirements. Options positions are another story, in-the-money calls do require delivery of the shares by the expiration date, and next such date is tomorrow. Nobody is going to make the hedge funds burn. At this point the hedge funds are fleecing whoever was buying shares or options yesterday (who do you think they bought them from?).
    - boatsie 6y ago
      Exactly, “wall st” as a whole is making bank off this volatility, as well as Blackrock and Fidelity finds. The real way to actually stick it to wall st would be if all of main st sold all their equities..
    - sveme 6y ago
      Thanks for teaching me something I did not know! May the post above be forever a monument to my ignorance!
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I believe the original r/WSB idea was to induce a short squeeze and cause Melvin Capital to lose their shirts. See: http://www.isthesqueezesquoze.com/ http://www.isthesqueezesquoze.com/
pgt 6y ago
Could someone please confirm this, but as I understand they blocked buys but not sells, or the other way around? Instead of freezing the stock, it drives the price in one direction.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Correct. They blocked buys which would drive the price down, benefitting Citadel, their main source of revenue. I don’t know if that’s why they did this but that’s what the lawsuit is for: to find out. At worst, Robinhood is going to close because of this and their and Citadel’s execs might face prison for manipulating the market.
  - pgt 6y ago
    Thanks for confirming! What happens if this kind of thing happens due to an unintentional bug? Do execs go to jail for market manipulation?
    - lovecg 6y ago
      Not a lawyer, but I imagine it’s similar to how industrial accidents are treated. If there was proper due diligence and precautions, and it was truly an “act of God” sort of thing, that’s understandable. If on the other hand their processes are not up to snuff and they moved a bit too fast and broke one too many things, I imagine they wouldn’t be treated as nicely.
xeonoex 6y ago
Robinhood is what all the people jumping on the bandwagon used. And this coincided with a sharp price drop on all of these stocks blocked. The reason was "Due to ongoing volatility", but any trader will tell you volatility is how money is made. It took all of the normal people out of the game, and tried to scare them into selling so that the ones holding the shorts are in a better position. And to add to that, a company (Citadel) that pays Robinhood a large amount of money for their data is one of those with the short positions. So Robinhood itself has a stake in this. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I am talking about and this is only my opinion.
- lovecg 6y ago
  > And to add to that, a company (Citadel) that pays Robinhood a large amount of money for their data is one of those with the short positions. So Robinhood itself has a stake in this. That’s quite a claim. Got a source on that?
  - xeonoex 6y ago
    Again I have no idea what I'm talking about, but https://www.equities.com/news/robinhood-is-said-to-get-40-revenue-from-hft-firms-like-citadel https://www.equities.com/news/robinhood-is-said-to-get-40-re... https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1354853920762253315 https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1354853920762253315 I'm no market expert, but I know that when cash is flowing between two companies, they generally have shared interests.
marcinzm 6y ago
>Why is Robinhood being singled out? Likely because it has the most impacted users. I suspect other platforms will get lawsuits as well in time if this one proceeds.
Triv888 6y ago
I've been buying on TDA and Schwab today... I think that TDA only restricts you if you are on a margin account. I'm on a cash account because I like to avoid their "pattern day trader" protection.
avereveard 6y ago
blocking options calls from account that can't cover the position: good, probably saved people from getting into debt blocking purchases of shares from accounts that have enough to cover the contract: highly sketchy and worthy of deep scrutiny some broker did 1, some did 2, but form screenshots alone is hard to tell which did which
mcv 6y ago
Many trading platforms still allow trading. And there's no real reason not to, except to protect the hedge funds that fucked up. Edit: And I just found out my platform (Binck) doesn't accept trades anymore. Edit: Apparently they do accept trades, but only if your limit is close to the current price. I was increasing mine because it wasn't executing at the lower price. Eventually I did get in at the lower price. We'll see where this goes.
alasdair_ 6y ago
Vanguard hasn’t. Fidelity hasn’t. TD Ameritrade hasn’t (other than not allowing margin for shorts). I disn’t check Schwab but I don’t think they blocked purchases either.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago

Robinhood was the first.

Avalaxy 6y ago

DeGiro is still good. Bought GME there today.

janmo 6y ago
I also use DEGIRO, and it is a good broker, it doesn't do this scammy pay for order flow thing that Robinhood and Trade republic are doing, that said, I didn't buy GME and I would not recommend buying it.
- mcv 6y ago
  It is super risky, but there's a definite path to profit here: the short-sellers sold too much stock. 140% of the shares, it appears, which means shares were borrowed, sold, and then borrowed from the buyer it was sold to and sold again. And when all those shorts run out, the short-sellers need to have bought shares back again. With share prices this high, they're going to have to pay a lot of money for them, and people holding shares could make a ton of profit. But it's definitely risky. You could lose a lot of money. Many of the people buying are also doing it to stick it to the hedge funds and give them a taste of their own medicine.

the_drunkard 6y ago

> Virtually all trading platforms have blocked users from opening positions on these symbols. Can you be more specific? Robinhood & Webull are the only two that I'm aware of.

crookshanked 6y ago
TD Ameritrade is preventing me from opening positions right now.
- totony 6y ago
  TD Canada has prevented some forms of orders (e.g. market buy), but not limit buy - I think this isn't so bad as their clients might expect the quoted price and get screwed at open because of volatility
andrewmunsell 6y ago
Ally was as well (I am not sure who fills the orders), but Fidelity was still working for me.
NotzoCoolKid 6y ago
Tastyworks also blocked opening new positions.
oh_sigh 6y ago
tastyworks went to close-only @ 11:39AM per an email, and opened it back up at 3:12PM today. They blamed Apex clearing, which is the custodian for tastyworks accounts.
nannal 6y ago
212 did this aswell.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

adrr 6y ago

I am so curious what the long term plan for GME is. Is it to hold the long term? If it’s not, what are the plans to unwind?

sveme 6y ago
At some point those shorts are due - if the owner of the shorts doesn't hold the necessary stocks, it's going to be expensive. That's my understanding. What happens afterwards? No ideas. Some people want to see hedge funds burn, I would not mind that either.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Short sales do not work like that. You can have a short position indefinitely, as long as you pay the margin interest and meet the margin maintenance requirements. Options positions are another story, in-the-money calls do require delivery of the shares by the expiration date, and next such date is tomorrow. Nobody is going to make the hedge funds burn. At this point the hedge funds are fleecing whoever was buying shares or options yesterday (who do you think they bought them from?).
  - boatsie 6y ago
    Exactly, “wall st” as a whole is making bank off this volatility, as well as Blackrock and Fidelity finds. The real way to actually stick it to wall st would be if all of main st sold all their equities..
  - sveme 6y ago
    Thanks for teaching me something I did not know! May the post above be forever a monument to my ignorance!
nerdponx 6y ago
I believe the original r/WSB idea was to induce a short squeeze and cause Melvin Capital to lose their shirts. See: http://www.isthesqueezesquoze.com/ http://www.isthesqueezesquoze.com/

pgt 6y ago

Could someone please confirm this, but as I understand they blocked buys but not sells, or the other way around? Instead of freezing the stock, it drives the price in one direction.

IgorPartola 6y ago
Correct. They blocked buys which would drive the price down, benefitting Citadel, their main source of revenue. I don’t know if that’s why they did this but that’s what the lawsuit is for: to find out. At worst, Robinhood is going to close because of this and their and Citadel’s execs might face prison for manipulating the market.
- pgt 6y ago
  Thanks for confirming! What happens if this kind of thing happens due to an unintentional bug? Do execs go to jail for market manipulation?
  - lovecg 6y ago
    Not a lawyer, but I imagine it’s similar to how industrial accidents are treated. If there was proper due diligence and precautions, and it was truly an “act of God” sort of thing, that’s understandable. If on the other hand their processes are not up to snuff and they moved a bit too fast and broke one too many things, I imagine they wouldn’t be treated as nicely.

xeonoex 6y ago

Robinhood is what all the people jumping on the bandwagon used. And this coincided with a sharp price drop on all of these stocks blocked. The reason was "Due to ongoing volatility", but any trader will tell you volatility is how money is made. It took all of the normal people out of the game, and tried to scare them into selling so that the ones holding the shorts are in a better position. And to add to that, a company (Citadel) that pays Robinhood a large amount of money for their data is one of those with the short positions. So Robinhood itself has a stake in this. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I am talking about and this is only my opinion.

lovecg 6y ago
> And to add to that, a company (Citadel) that pays Robinhood a large amount of money for their data is one of those with the short positions. So Robinhood itself has a stake in this. That’s quite a claim. Got a source on that?
- xeonoex 6y ago
  Again I have no idea what I'm talking about, but https://www.equities.com/news/robinhood-is-said-to-get-40-revenue-from-hft-firms-like-citadel https://www.equities.com/news/robinhood-is-said-to-get-40-re... https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1354853920762253315 https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1354853920762253315 I'm no market expert, but I know that when cash is flowing between two companies, they generally have shared interests.

marcinzm 6y ago

>Why is Robinhood being singled out? Likely because it has the most impacted users. I suspect other platforms will get lawsuits as well in time if this one proceeds.

Triv888 6y ago

I've been buying on TDA and Schwab today... I think that TDA only restricts you if you are on a margin account. I'm on a cash account because I like to avoid their "pattern day trader" protection.

avereveard 6y ago

blocking options calls from account that can't cover the position: good, probably saved people from getting into debt blocking purchases of shares from accounts that have enough to cover the contract: highly sketchy and worthy of deep scrutiny some broker did 1, some did 2, but form screenshots alone is hard to tell which did which

mcv 6y ago

Many trading platforms still allow trading. And there's no real reason not to, except to protect the hedge funds that fucked up. Edit: And I just found out my platform (Binck) doesn't accept trades anymore. Edit: Apparently they do accept trades, but only if your limit is close to the current price. I was increasing mine because it wasn't executing at the lower price. Eventually I did get in at the lower price. We'll see where this goes.

alasdair_ 6y ago

Vanguard hasn’t. Fidelity hasn’t. TD Ameritrade hasn’t (other than not allowing margin for shorts). I disn’t check Schwab but I don’t think they blocked purchases either.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]