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Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

techcrunch.com

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Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#121

Post by mcguire »

SirLJ wrote: post #106
dsacco wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the thrust of your argument, but I'm confused with regards to ebay. I took a casual look and, yes, found listings of "financial data" (among lots of buzzy keywords) for Do you have personal experience buying data from ebay? Why would you do that?

I got it from this seller and at the time it was $99. http://www.ebay.com/usr/artinvest389 I did test random samples from the data against other data providers and I am using it every day an yet to find errors or mistakes...

"Stock Symbol, Date, Open, High, Low, Close, Volume"

Sounds like fun for those that like technical analysis.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#122

Post by blahman2 »

SirLJ wrote: post #112
econner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Robinhood with a small amount of money that I am 100% ok losing. I hold a small number of tech stocks to keep me invested in their movements. Some of them have turned out better (nvidia) than others (twitter). But it does help me follow the news from those companies a little better.

Please do not do this, it is never OK to loose money, better give the money to charity and sign for a fantasy portfolio and get your news and trills there...

What you just said introduces a bit of a conflict with your claim that strategy is important. Sometimes you need to take calculated risks (i.e. always be reasonable, don't lose all of your assets, don't get addicted) and 'lose' money to learn how to make more money.

I think it is very noble of you to weigh your needs against the needs of others. Charity and how you should exercise it is a very interesting subject, and there are many many ways to do it optimally. See Givewell, Watsi, Mindsmatter etc. Since you are reading this, I assume you are doing reasonably well in life, so, and this is my personal view btw, you do need to give something back to those in need. However, don't let that prevent you from investing in your own education - it will very likely enable you to do more.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#123

Post by dublidu »

adambratt wrote: post #69

Robinhood is just a marketing play. Anything about them selling flow or using margin offerings to become profitable is not realistic. Traditional brokerages have a customer acquisition cost of around $400 to get someone to deposit at least $100 in an account. They've got a million users and continue to grow quicker and quicker. For a small multiple of traditional CAC they are already close to their >$1B valuation jus…

Robinhood's average account size is much smaller than the traditional brokerages, so they're not making much (if any) per client. I don't know if waiting for your clients to get rich is a viable strategy these days because these clients might jump to better options in the future.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#124

Post by mcguire »

nodesocket wrote: post #16
whitepoplar wrote: post #6

I think what Robinhood is doing with Gold accounts is pretty shady. I'm guessing that the vast majority of people who trade on margin don't fully comprehend the risks in doing so.

It's not rocket science, and it is obviously a loan. How is margin shady? This claim that it is somehow predatory or that consumers need to be protected is nonsense. This assumes that people can't do research and due diligence. If you aren't informed to make financial decisions than you probably shouldn't be trading. If you choose to proceed, do so at your own risk. All brokerages offer margin and typically this is h…

The 1920s want their arguments back.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#125

Post by mcguire »

arjie wrote: post #73
Veratyr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's scary: https://np.reddit.com/r/RobinHood/comments/5y8cw4/after_maki... The guy was posting around about consumer law and how he should be able to get a refund.

> I bought Express stock EXPR yesterday. I know a girl who works there and I thought it would make a good conversation piece but now today the stock is going down really fast. That's the one I want to return. I don't want to have to go into the actual store to talk to them about this I was hoping there was an option to do it online. That's someone having a laugh at the expense of a bunch of fools who think they're so…

"I was banned from [/r/wallstreetbets] for 2 days for linking this thread. Worth it."

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#126

Post by mcguire »

webaholic wrote: post #51
marcell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's $10/mo to borrow up to $2k. The cost to borrow more goes up.

It's 100$ pm to borrow 24K$. It is not bad overall.

At least 6% and 5%? Not bad. If you use all of it.

Still, I'm predicting margin calls in someone's future.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#127

Post by SirLJ »

blahman2 wrote: post #122
SirLJ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not do this, it is never OK to loose money, better give the money to charity and sign for a fantasy portfolio and get your news and trills there...

What you just said introduces a bit of a conflict with your claim that strategy is important. Sometimes you need to take calculated risks (i.e. always be reasonable, don't lose all of your assets, don't get addicted) and 'lose' money to learn how to make more money. I think it is very noble of you to weigh your needs against the needs of others. Charity and how you should exercise it is a very interesting subject, an…

Yep, let me clarify, it is never OK to loose money due stupidity, not knowing what you are doing, praying the market will turn around, etc. If you have a proper risk management and investing strategy, yes, you will have many periods and trades where you are going to loose money short term, but you'll be confident that you'll make the money back + more, because you did back test everything and you have the proof your strategy works...

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#128

Post by SirLJ »

mcguire wrote: post #120
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy and hold indefinitely is a completely valid strategy, and outperforms almost all active investment strategies in the long term.

Especially with somewhat-diversified assets like SPYders or index funds. At least, it's worked reasonably well for me for the last 20 years.

Buy and hold will work until it doesn't and a lot of people will be left holding the bag, especially if you need the money at the bottom for medical, retirement, etc... Just check the Japan’s Nikkei stock index, almost 30 years later people are still waiting and are far far away from the top...

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#129

Post by jonwachob91 »

SirLJ wrote: post #102

Here are my 2cents: Robinhood is irrelevant and border line dangerous. Irrelevant, because for someone who knows what they are doing in the stock market paying $10 or $0 per trade is not going to save them any money. Dangerous, because it promotes more trades for the “unsophisticated” investor and encourages leverage = very dangerous situation. Bottom line, if you do not know what you are doing, don’t do it, buy and…

You're right, Buy and Hold is a terrible strategy. Look how poor Warren Buffet is as a result of holding. /sarcasm

Not having capital isn't the same as being unsophisticated. I could do all the right research on which stock I want to buy, but if I only have $100 to invest at the end of every month $10 fees would dig into my earnings very quickly.

Assuming that people without large amounts to invest are stupid says more about you than it does them.

EDIT: you also don't need to spend $100 for 20 years of stock data. Plenty of services, such as Quantiacs/Quantopian/QuantConnect allow you to test your strategy against historical data for free.

Re: Robinhood stock trading app valued at $1.3B with big raise from DST

#130

Post by dsacco »

SirLJ wrote: post #118
rco8786 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody asked about your income or whether the data was worth $100 or not. OP said he couldn't find good data on eBay and asked for clarity Your comment is very perplexing in content and tone.

Sorry if I came out this way, but this is my honest answer - the data is cheap... being a lazy person, for me everything is a risk/reward... $100 to back test any trading strategy I can imagine up to 20 years back is the best risk / reward, much much, better than to go and start trading "for free" on a fancy app on a $500 phone with a "small account" I can "afford" to loose...

I guess the reason why it seems confusing is because if you're prioritizing risk/reward tradeoffs and saying that spending the money for good data is worth it to you, why not license the data from a reputable source?

That said, I think I might not have conveyed my original question well enough - what I actually meant was 1) is the data accurate? (you sort of answered this by saying you compare it to presumably licensed sources) and 2) what actually led you to searching for financial data on ebay? (you didn't answer this, other than "it's cheap").

I'm basically wondering how you did the mental calculus that concluded ebay was a good place to check before you verified the data was alright.

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