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A broker is just a service. As it turns out a low-cost/free service provides an inferior service to high-cost prime brokers. You get what you pay for. That’s n

A broker is just a service. As it turns out a low-cost/free service provides an inferior service to high-cost prime brokers. You get what you pay for. That’s not a scandal. It’s common sense. It’d be like me complaining that it’s no fair that Google can afford better infrastructure than my startup search engine. Day trading is not a human right. Anybody who wants trading infrastructure like Citadel is free to go out and spend the same hundreds of millions it took Citadel to build that infrastructure.

alistairSH 6y ago
I don't think that's quite accurate either. It's not that RH's service is terrible, it's they had to cut trades to meet regulatory obligations. But, by only cutting trades in one direction. And that happened to be in the direction that favors their largest customer. And that customer also happens to be on the hook for much of the short squeeze... The optics are TERRIBLE.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  They didn’t cut trades in one direction. They closed new positions in both directions. Buys were still allowed to close short positions, just the same as sells were allowed to close long positions.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, I saw similar comments and assumed they were true. Regardless, that doesn't change the optics to an outsider - the rich guys (hedge funds) get to stop their losses, potentially screwing the little guy.
recursive 6y ago
> Anybody who wants trading infrastructure like Citadel is free to go out and spend the same hundreds of millions it took Citadel to build that infrastructure. Well, no. Most people don't have that. "The rich get richer".
horns4lyfe 6y ago
That might be true if government and big finance weren’t so intertwined. A lot of these big players are propped up by endless QE, which will eventually hit normal people in the form of inflation and taxes.

alistairSH 6y ago

I don't think that's quite accurate either. It's not that RH's service is terrible, it's they had to cut trades to meet regulatory obligations. But, by only cutting trades in one direction. And that happened to be in the direction that favors their largest customer. And that customer also happens to be on the hook for much of the short squeeze... The optics are TERRIBLE.

dcolkitt 6y ago
They didn’t cut trades in one direction. They closed new positions in both directions. Buys were still allowed to close short positions, just the same as sells were allowed to close long positions.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Thanks for the clarification, I saw similar comments and assumed they were true. Regardless, that doesn't change the optics to an outsider - the rich guys (hedge funds) get to stop their losses, potentially screwing the little guy.

recursive 6y ago

> Anybody who wants trading infrastructure like Citadel is free to go out and spend the same hundreds of millions it took Citadel to build that infrastructure. Well, no. Most people don't have that. "The rich get richer".

horns4lyfe 6y ago

That might be true if government and big finance weren’t so intertwined. A lot of these big players are propped up by endless QE, which will eventually hit normal people in the form of inflation and taxes.