It's interesting to see the outrage about this. Everyone who has done a bit of research into this kind of broker knew this. It's the only way to get the commissionless trading they advertise with. Just another case of "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".
Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#872It's interesting to see the outrage about this. Everyone who has done a bit of research into this kind of broker knew this. It's the only way to get the commissionless trading they advertise with. Just another case of "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".
I see little outrage about this. The outrage is about illegally manipulating the market in broad daylight by preventing retail investors from purchasing a stock. Is a user expected to tolerate illegal activity because the businesses customer demands it of them? If you have any doubt what Robinhood is doing is illegal (setting aside that it's clearly morally reprehensible), then I encourage you to read the suit that w…
There's a difference between preventing someone from buying a stock and telling them you're not going to assume the risk of making a market for them, which is what's going on here. You cannot force Citadel to make a market for your orders.
They happen to result in the same situation, but the implications are completely different.
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#873 Namely, should a brokerage—especially one like Robinhood that brands itself with an anti-Wall Street Everyman gloss—be selling its customers’ trades?
What exactly is the point of this article, other than trying to stir up anti-Robinhood sentiment?
Relying on PFOF/external execution is now a bad thing?
Is the author advocating to do away with PFOF/external execution?What's the proposed alternative, because it seems like that would take us to a full circle. In previous years, the brokerage dealing directly to the clients was fraught with problems: conflict of interest between the brokerage and their clients because the brokerage holds offsetting client positions, and the market risk held by the brokerage.
Auditing "best execution" is pretty straight-forward for a brokerage and regulators (really anyone with the data). If Brokerages are "cheating" and dealing against their clients best interests, then that's exactly the role of regulators.
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#87499.99% (or more) of people who buy lotteries, lose ALL their money. However, government allows anyone to buy them. There is no meaningful restriction for an assured destruction of wealth for most of those who buy them. While this GME/AMC run will not end well for many people, restricting people from buying those stocks - whether it is through actions of trading platforms or governing agencies - smacks not just of pat…
It's basically corruption and shows why we need free markets and why it is a problem that exchanges are private companies.
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#875As I understand it, the hedge funds had naked shorts. That's illegal. If they did, what is happening to them serves them right. Even if they didn't, a "short squeeze" is perfectly legal. If the short sellers think the stock is overpriced, and there's others that think its underpriced, then both sides are placing their bets and will deal with the result, either by making or losing a lot of money. This is not a "pump a…
> If the short sellers think the stock is overpriced, and there's others that think its underpriced, then both sides are placing their bets and will deal with the result, either by making or losing a lot of money. I don't think it's really a case of people disagreeing on the real value of GameStop stock. Framing it like this ignores important facts. This stock was trading around $4 in August, around $20 in the beginn…
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#876"Robinhood got about 40% of their revenues from one of the hedge funds that just took a dive on Gamestop. Highly recommend an investigation. This smells like collusion to protect the rich insiders." https://twitter.com/mindmeld_me/status/1354807424998281217
Is there a source for the 40% figure? It seems to allude that the fund in question is Citadel.
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#877It's interesting to see the outrage about this. Everyone who has done a bit of research into this kind of broker knew this. It's the only way to get the commissionless trading they advertise with. Just another case of "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".
I see little outrage about this. The outrage is about illegally manipulating the market in broad daylight by preventing retail investors from purchasing a stock. Is a user expected to tolerate illegal activity because the businesses customer demands it of them? If you have any doubt what Robinhood is doing is illegal (setting aside that it's clearly morally reprehensible), then I encourage you to read the suit that w…
As a retail investor, I'm a little squeemish that firms want to pay me to trade with me, but given the National Best Bid and Offer requirements, I don't see what the downside is for me. It's like accepting a deal at the electronics store that's listed as 'no resellers.'
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#878Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a couple of charitable explanations for Robinhood acting this way. One is that most Robinhood users probably under-estimate how quickly they can sell if the price turns around quickly. There might not be enough willing buyers for all of the Robhinhood users who might be looking to get out at the same time. Another thing is that I'm not a lawyer, but they could be worried that if the SCC finds the discussion…
Every short seller is a buyer. That's why people keep buying the stock. There are more buyers than sellers.
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#879It's interesting to see the outrage about this. Everyone who has done a bit of research into this kind of broker knew this. It's the only way to get the commissionless trading they advertise with. Just another case of "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".
Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop
#880Earlier quoted context omitted.
99.99% of people who buy lotteries know it's a gamble rather than a moneymaking strategy. Nobody is advising people buying lottery tickets that they should borrow money to buy as many of them as possible because they will make a nice easy profit at the expense of the rich. It's often said lotteries are a tax on people that don't understand probability, but at least people playing don't think they're doing arbitrage.…
> Nobody is advising people buying lottery tickets That's demonstrably false. There are literal ads on TV that show how wealthy you can become if you just buy a lottery ticket. > that they should borrow money to buy as many of them as possible because they will make a nice easy profit You clearly haven't read any of the GME threads on WSB. Pretty much everyone is saying to only invest what you can afford to lose. Mos…
That's because you truncated my sentence to pretend I made a claim I didn't make. What I did say is that nobody is marketing lottery tickets as an investment or (or posting screenshots of how much they've spent on lottery tickets to encourage others not to cash out). They're literally not allowed to in those ads you mention.
> You clearly haven't read any of the GME threads on WSB. Pretty much everyone is saying to only invest what you can afford to lose. Most people are buying small amounts just to f##k with the hedge funds, and they are outspoken about it.
All the top threads are people encouraging others not to take their money out because it'll hold its value, honest, and the specific stakes people are sharing range from thousands to [options on] millions. You don't see people make those kind of bets on lotteries, and people with financial upside from lottery ticket sales certainly aren't allowed to encourage them to.
I mean, the whole reason we're having this discussion about Wall St versus the common man is because people here are treating entering the market at this stage as an opportunity rather than a negative EV gamble for people looking to join the action. If a vendor stops selling tickets for a particular lottery, nobody acts like wannabe customers or ticket holders dreaming of bigger jackpots are victims.
> Buying a lottery ticket for a dollar, hoping they make much more? Isn't that the whole point of a lottery?
The point of buying a lottery ticket for a dollar for what even the dumbest lottery player knows is an tiny chance of winning isn't very similar to the point of buying what used to be $20 stocks starting at $200 after reading an "AT THIS RATE $5,000 IS GOING TO BE NOTHING FOR GME" post.
> But suddenly, when a big hedge fund is caught with their pants down, people like you come out and pretend like what's happening is a big problem, and we have to stop the trading "because some people can lose money".
Casinos block people from some gambles all the time (especially if something funny's going on or they think they might get sued). Nobody cares. Some brokers stop people from some gambles on their platform and people gnash their teeth with rage at how unfair it is, before flipping to arguing that it's just a game people are playing with what they can afford to lose. The double standard here isn't mine.
And yes, most people buying today would lose money (with or without broker intervention). That's not a reason to for Robinhood to stop the trading, it's a simple observation which is hard to square with arguments that stopping the trades is some monstrous imposition on the common man.
As for the hedge funds and investment pros, some of the longs would have loved to see more retail investor action today, and some of the shorts are already out.