I am curious to hear all of your thoughts on this Robinhood Zero Commission Stock Trading company.
Is it too good to be true? Or is there a catch? I think it is sketchy but it is backed by some big name Venture Capitalists so obviously they are doing something right.
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I believe the catch is that there is no research. The company itself still is capable of generating revenue through other methods besides trading. I think there was a thread about this a few weeks back.
I use them. It takes 3 days to post money to your account after a sale. If you can wait that long it's pretty convenient. If you don't day trade.
There's a waiting list, so you won't be guaranteed a spot anytime soon. I signed up months back and I was number 100,000 or something. I'm not crossing my fingers. Even if you aren't a baller, if you are a fan of value investing, the trade commissions shouldn't be much of an issue. I'd love to pay zero, but they don't greatly affect my profits anyway. Their facts that they spit on their website is true. It takes next to nothing in costs to place a trade. They make their money on margin interest.
Their goal isnt to make money right now (basically the business model of any startup). They do over charge for functions that 99% of the people dont need to use and they make money on interest of unused funds.
I use it now and think it is pretty solid. Like they said, the only downside is the three day wait and there are a lot of small cap stocks not listed.
The three days wait is pretty much industry wide so I dont see how that is a robinhood issue. There are a couple firms that allow you to trade on unsettled funds by making good faith trades, but they are usually restricted by how often you can make them.
You can get the account quicker by getting invited by a user. That's how I got mine. You get 3 invites to share once you establish an account.
I got in a few days ago, just waiting for some account stuff to clear before its good to go.
I've been trading on their platform for a month now. I've had a good experience so far and my only complaint, like others have mentioned, is the lack of certain small cap stocks.
I've been trading on their platform for a month now. I've had a good experience so far and my only complaint, like others have mentioned, is the lack of certain small cap stocks.
You also get crappier pricing on some less liquid names (or at least I feel like it), but more than enough to make up for no fees. Also really annoying with the 3 day cash wait.
A company named after someone who steals from the rich and gives to the poor...
https://robinhoodapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203580115-What-does-…-
RobinHood - Start-up retail brokerage - $0 Commissions...forever. (Originally Posted: 12/30/2013)
Did anyone else see this? It's backed by Google Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz.
Their business model seems pretty damn interesting. Anyone have an idea of what changes this could mean for the industry.
From techcrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/18/zero-commission-stock-trading-robinhoo…
https://www.robinhood.io/
Looks interesting.
I thought this part was cool: How does Robinhood make money? Robinhood will offer margin trading as well as API access. We also plan to offer premium services for active investors in the future. Robinhood is venture-funded by Google, Andreessen Horowitz and many others, which affords us the freedom to focus on building a wonderful brokerage experience rather than short-term profits.
Interesting. Ultimately the trade execution, market data and overall usability will be more important though. My commissions are so cheap from Interactive Brokers already that you would have to make a pretty compelling argument to switch. Anybody technologically savvy enough to use this is likely already using a discount broker online so they aren't paying huge fees. Switching costs are a pain in the ass once you are set in a broker and used to their system.
^^^ Agreed. This is a cool concept, but I used IB as well and love the incredibly low cost of margin. I am guessing margin rates are gonna be seriously high to help make up for the lack of commissions here. Either way, its still a good idea for people that are not hardcore traders and have simple portfolios with no leverage.
Why can't those people just use Wells Fargo that offers 100 free trades per year per account?
Interesting
If the technology is up to par, i would rather pay $0 than $.01. This is a great idea.
Zecco tried this 5 or 6 years ago. They offered free trades for a while and then changed their policy to include only accounts with $25k+. I was in college at the time so paying zero commissions was pretty nice.
And then they realized their online and mobile (which didn't exists) trading sucked ass and needed to start generating some revenue somewhere. As long as this site has the absolute basics and is easy to use, then it should be successful. I don't know how profitable it could actually be, but it would be nice.
you can really do some dollar cost averaging haha. say you wanted 100 shares of coke. you can just place a whole bunch of limit orders for the day
The Robinhood App (Originally Posted: 03/05/2014)
Has anyone gotten access to this yet? I am not going to shamelessly throw up a referral link, just curious if anyone here was part of the 160k waitlisters to be invited to the app. If so, how do you like it?
Edit: Nevermind, here is my link if anyone hasn't signed up yet, but is interested https://www.robinhood.com/?ref=rRgZXG
I don't think its out yet…I'm within top 100,000 and haven't gotten any invitations.
This article came out last week. http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/27/trade-stocks-free-robinhood/
Looks a bit too good to be true! Time to do some DD..
Hadn't even heard about it. Just added to the waiting list. #280,000~ish.
I'm on the waitlist too at around 160,000. Does seem a little bit too good to be true. You have to think one of the major trading platforms would want to buy it out ASAP.
Okay this is a great app idea BUT what about all the people at investment banks who are only approved for certain brokers? This is useless to 90% of the people on this website. I can't even use e*trade at my BB, nevermind an app called Robinhood.
Let's be honest...probably 10% of users on here have broker restrictions.
Good thing about being in VC is you sometimes hear about things early. I got on the list of a few months ago. I'm currently number 712th in line. If I get access soon i'll let you guys know what I think.
Been using ETrade & TDAmeritrade for the last 5 years.
40K people ahead of me
Im top 5k...but probably wont be able to use it.
10,202 People ahead of you 279,609 People behind you Still waiting for this great product. :(
I also took a survey two weeks ago. Said I have an Iphone 4s tho so i wonder if I'll get dinged from the beta test group...
NEW GOOGLE Venture ZERO Commission Stock Brokerage - Robinhood (Originally Posted: 12/23/2013)
https://www.robinhood.io/?ref=7L9EH8 Currently sign ups are open
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/12/18/google-backed-brokerage… Google backed brokerage "Robinhood" to offer free trades
Thoughts on a $0 fee brokerage, I'm currently trading at $10 a pop on OptionXpress, but something like this would make penny trading or buying stock and selling more often a lot more enticing. Opinions?
Ridic. Will be interesting to see how (if) google plans to make money on this, and whether it is 'completely' free or free with caveats (e.g. trade frequency limits, trade pairing requirements, etc...)
"Robinhood will offer margin trading as well as API access. We also plan to offer premium services for active investors in the future. Robinhood is venture-funded by Google, Andreessen Horowitz and many others, which affords us the freedom to focus on building a wonderful brokerage experience rather than short-term profits. "
Guess that's how they will make money on this. It make a while for them to actually break profit tho with start up costs. There seems to be high interest in this tho
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/im-curious-to-know-your-thoughts-…
Let's do that use the ref link above you thing: https://www.robinhood.io/?ref=2p6sTh
This looks like an interesting idea but they're only authorized to do business in California so far. I don't think people in other states will be able to register until later (but, everyone may as well get on the waiting list).
Robinhood App, and Everyone's an Analyst (Originally Posted: 04/19/2013)
Now that Spacetime has launched their new stock market-related iOS app, I'm pretty sure some of you use it already.
For those who do not, Robinhood lets you create recommendations about buying or selling stocks. You get a score depending on how good your advice is. The TNW article labels it as "a stock market competition without the real life financial risk." Spacetime hopes that crowd-sourcing ideas would enable returns "superior to even the best of the individuals."
The app is free for now, but the company will likely add a paying premium version.
So what do you think ? Flop or success ? Fun application or major trolling opportunity ?
They need to verify legit traders and etc. if they want to be established as a commendable source. Likely we'll find kids who are trying to get some solid search results blabbing about some ridiculous call they found by searching the stock tag on Twitter.
I imagine they just want to aggregate and sell "crowdsourced" ratings/expectations, because people will buy those reports.
I hate retail trading. I'd love to ban it.
I love retail traders, weak hands!
Isn't that what Motley Fool CAPS system already does? Rate people based on their stock calls?
Another opportunity to get ignorants involved in the markets ...
http://www.youtube.com/embed/6LG9w96DPGc
(LIVE) Robinhood - Commision-Free Stock Trading (Originally Posted: 12/12/2014)
If anyone's interested - since I got bumped pretty close to the start of the waiting list largely thanks to you all, I have 2 free invites I'll give out here. First come/first serve, post here or message. It's only for iOS 7 or higher devices for now.
Now, this largely is "you get what you pay for". IB among many brokerages is better for anyone who's actively trading and the $1/trade isn't much of anything. But, for a play money or smaller account it's not a bad way to start investing in addition to retirement accounts.
https://www.robinhood.com/
Ill take an invite. Thanks
I'll take one also!
How is this any different then Loyal3?
As the internet would say.
ItZ fRoM Da GoOgLeZ
I'm not ready to give them my social security number. ended up passing on the beta testing.
It's Google backed so I really want to try it, but then what happens if it goes out of business?
Robinhood Investment (Originally Posted: 12/16/2014)
Anybody on here hear of it or use it?
My friend just got access after waiting something like 8 months. It seems pretty awesome, that you can trade with $0 commissions. I'm using his account to give it a try. I think if you have an account you can invite people too. I'm not really quite sure how it all works yet.
So far it seems, extremely basic. Pretty much what you would expect from an app on your phone that charges you $0 commissions! ha
Just got it after about 8 months on the waitlist too. I'm not a heavy investor, so the simplicity suits me very well. What else were you expecting from the app? Not asking condescendingly, just curious because I don't know squat about investing anyway.
I wasn't expecting anything. My friend texted me about an hour ago about it. Now I'm using his account to try it out haha
I like the simplicity of it. I feel I can place an order faster on there than on something like Etrade because of how simple it is.
This type of thing is perfect for the type of account we are using before throwing a bunch of money in it if it ends up busting or something. You can trade $100 per stock and not have to worry about commissions eating all of your returns.
It's gonna lead to so much overtrading; noobs will be losing left and right. Guess whatever it takes to funnel $ into my account tho
u gonn get so depressed brah when random prodigy/phenom kids who used to play poker start owning you up and making money on you
I wonder if they will be able to generate enough revenue to keep it free, especially at a bigger scale. That being said, as long as its stays free its an amazing gadget for anyone investing in low volumes.
They plan on charging 5% margin borrowing rates compared to 1-2% of the traditional online brokers
I wonder if they will be able to generate enough revenue to keep it free, especially at a bigger scale. That being said, as long as its stays free its an amazing gadget for anyone investing in low volumes.
@"Skinnayyy" you want an invite? I've got 3 if anyone would like one.
nahh. I'll send myself one from my friends account if I feel like using my own money on it haha Thanks though!
saw the interview the other day, basically it's getting young people excited about investing, which is good, but it could also scare them away if they blow themselves up, which is not good. if it helps us avoid the inevitable retirement crisis, I'm all for it, but if it creates another tech bubble, fuck that.
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