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Robinhood’s big gamble

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131–140 of 156 posts

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#131
Robinhood did not have an "outage" as many people are saying in relation to the GameStop manipulation.

I don't recall the specific date, but I and x number of people put purchase orders in during the overnight that were not executed when the market opened.

Calling this an outage is disingenuous. Especially considering purchase orders for other stocks on that specific date/time were executed.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#132

I have a Schwab brokerage account, until recently I could trade OTCs and can still trade warrants and futures. These are riskier securities than common stock. None of which is possible on RH as far as I know. When I created my Schwab account I received and was offered no specific training, and largely learned how to trade on YT, Investopedia, and articles. My point is this: RH has become the media's favorite whipping…

Schwab doesn't have outages during sell-offs of very visible investments, though. Hasn't Robinhood hit the rocks pretty hard during GME and DOGE sell-offs recently? The reason I won't use them is because I don't think I'm their customer - whoever is paying for the order flow is, and I don't trust their platform to be available in the middle of turbulence. EDIT: I get it - Schwab also had visible outages. Sorry for th…

It was not a site wide outage. Only a small handful of stocks could not be ordered.

If that's not putting ones finger on the scale I don't know what is.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Schwab customer, I can confidently note there are many outages, especially on volatile market days. Sometimes, you have no idea if an order went through. With e-trade you get a sub-second push notification for trade confirmations, but with Schwab those push notifications come minutes or hours later. Meanwhile, if the website is down, you have no idea what exposure you have.

I recommend you try out StreetSmartEdge for Schwab. While the UI is definitely Windows95-like, it's been reliable. The Schwab website + mobile app are not very good though.

UI being Windows 95-like sounds like a compliment to me.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#134

I have a Schwab brokerage account, until recently I could trade OTCs and can still trade warrants and futures. These are riskier securities than common stock. None of which is possible on RH as far as I know. When I created my Schwab account I received and was offered no specific training, and largely learned how to trade on YT, Investopedia, and articles. My point is this: RH has become the media's favorite whipping…

To be fair, it's also the messaging, marketing and target audience.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basis of US securities law is that rich people ("accredited investors") know enough to be responsible to take risks. Whereas poor people are too stupid to make risky investments without turning into degenerate gamblers. A lot of debates about financial regulation basically come down to whether this is a good principle or not. Too many times, both sides are arguing at cross purposes, because one implicitly assumes…

> rich people ("accredited investors") know enough to be responsible to take risks This is a straw man. The real argument: someone with more money is less likely to become destitute as a result of a bad investment. Also: someone with more money is less likely to become a political problem that shuts down the market, or a drain on the public purse, when they lose money. When it comes to private investments, someone in…

> The real argument...

I would agree with this except for one huge fact that has existed for close to 100 years - poor investors can put their money into options and blow up in a day, but can't put it into private equity.

I'm not ascribing any good or bad intent to the regulators here, but this is so big of a hole that I can't believe this has anything to do with destitution.

For what it's worth, I've seen an actual person do this first hand (options trading), and destroyed their life as a result.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#136
post #96

Last time I checked on Robinhood (and maybe they've changed it since then), when you want to buy options on their app, their UI gives you two options: "I think the stock is going to go up" and "I think the stock is going to go down." Say what you will about "democratizing" finance, but even if you think enabling retail investors to buy options is a laudable goal, surely they should at least know what a "put" and a "c…

Making things easier to understand does not mean the person doesn't understand it. Just because adults struggle to understand common core math, doesn't mean kids aren't just as capable of solving an equation. Options don't need to be confusing and I actually find RH's educational material and examples pretty good to get a basic understanding of how they work.

Disclaimer: I haven't used RH.

However, if the person you're responding to is correct about their UI it's negligent. The price of an option does not vary only with whether "you think the price will go up". Essentially it's mis-representing an option as a delta trade which it isn't.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#137

I have a Schwab brokerage account, until recently I could trade OTCs and can still trade warrants and futures. These are riskier securities than common stock. None of which is possible on RH as far as I know. When I created my Schwab account I received and was offered no specific training, and largely learned how to trade on YT, Investopedia, and articles. My point is this: RH has become the media's favorite whipping…

I wonder how much is by design. Exchanges feel like having a grinder without second handle nor wheel guard. At best you get a little light saying 'warning this is about to get bloody'.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schwab doesn't have outages during sell-offs of very visible investments, though. Hasn't Robinhood hit the rocks pretty hard during GME and DOGE sell-offs recently? The reason I won't use them is because I don't think I'm their customer - whoever is paying for the order flow is, and I don't trust their platform to be available in the middle of turbulence. EDIT: I get it - Schwab also had visible outages. Sorry for th…

As a Schwab customer, I can confidently note there are many outages, especially on volatile market days. Sometimes, you have no idea if an order went through. With e-trade you get a sub-second push notification for trade confirmations, but with Schwab those push notifications come minutes or hours later. Meanwhile, if the website is down, you have no idea what exposure you have.

Very odd to see massively wealthy industries still struggling to provide stable operations.

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend you try out StreetSmartEdge for Schwab. While the UI is definitely Windows95-like, it's been reliable. The Schwab website + mobile app are not very good though.

UI being Windows 95-like sounds like a compliment to me.

seconded

Re: Robinhood’s big gamble

#140

Working in a sports gambling field, I know the data shows that less than 1% of total players actually make a consistent profit. I wonder how similar it is for nonpassive traders(not investors) on the market, regardless of the platform. People trading futures or actively trading might not be making much money at all. Investing has been very profitable for a layman, but I do definitely believe that trading has been ove…

The professional "active investors" generally lose money after fees are taken into account:

"When performance is measured using before-fee model alphas and compared across the cross-sectional distribution, any active fund performance advantage is substantially less than one would conclude from benchmarking to average index fund performance. Moreover, any advantage of the top active managers over the top index funds is much less than the advantage of the worst index funds over the worst active funds. When performance accounts for residual risk, active funds no longer outperform index funds. " -https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS Vol. 53, No. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 33–64 COPYRIGHT 2018, MICHAEL G. FOSTER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE, WA 98195doi:10.1017/S0022109017000904 Passive versus Active Fund Performance: Do Index Funds Have Skill? Alan D.Crane and Kevin Crotty

I'm sure there are better sources, but I'm lazy today.

Day traders get even worse:

https://mathinvestor.org/2020/07/day-trading-in-the-age-of-c...

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