Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Robinhood S-1 IPO

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 404 posts

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#211

Post by teawrecks »

ditonal wrote: post #90
rburhum wrote: post #48

I understand that many give Robinhood crap because it is not "sophisticated enough" or because of the Gamestop fiasco. Although many startups like to claim that they are "democratizing [x]", I honestly believe they did it. I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often. Even myself, who used to only trade a couple of times a year, s…

Index funds democratized investing. Robinhood “democratized” the worst part of investing and exposed unsophisticated investors to the instruments they are most likely to underperform on. Individual stock picking is probably worse than indexes but fine, however the incentive to day trade or trade complex derivatives is almost certainly going to hurt people far more often than a Vanguard account. It’s not a coincidence…

IMO if there ever existed an "American Dream" it was: the ability for an individual to work hard, assume a high amount of risk, get lucky, and reap the rewards. There was a time when that was possible in the US, but it hasn't been that way for a long time.

It seems that in the 1900s the American Dream shifted to mean: get a job, buy a house, have kids, don't take risks, trust in the system and the system will support you.

Now in 2021, it's more like: get a job to ensure you don't go bankrupt from stupid high healthcare expenses, your employer will keep all the profits and shift all the risks onto you, and if you're moderately lucky and live in the right place, you won't be homeless.

I don't know how I feel about publicly traded stocks or the stock market, but I can't help but feel like "index funds democratized investing" is like saying "the 9 to 5 job democratized the American Dream".

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#212

Post by s1artibartfast »

bern4444 wrote: post #200
s1artibartfast wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be as long they follow the law in both jobs? It is like defense attorney becoming a prosecutor or an IRS employee becoming a tax advisor. The best person to give advice on a subject are those who have experience on both sides.

Its not a good idea to allow heads of massive institutions to just hop around right after their tenure is over. For one, it creates a negative incentive for the regulatory roles. Now people will seek to be head of the SEC just so they can score a specific job after. Incentives are misaligned. Lots of private sector companies (especially law firms) include non-compete clauses for similar reasons. They want to prevent…

>For one, it creates a negative incentive for the regulatory roles. Now people will seek to be head of the SEC just so they can score a specific job after. Incentives are misaligned.

I just don't see the misalignment in incentives. Everyone is thinking about their compensation next job, and it is only a problem if being bad at your current job somehow makes you more attractive to your next employer.

Unlike the private sector, there shouldn't be any insider information to protect. The SEC should be transparent about the law.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#213

Post by rsync »

rburhum wrote: post #48

I understand that many give Robinhood crap because it is not "sophisticated enough" or because of the Gamestop fiasco. Although many startups like to claim that they are "democratizing [x]", I honestly believe they did it. I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often. Even myself, who used to only trade a couple of times a year, s…

"I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often."

This reminds me of the lamentations I sometimes hear about the "unbanked" or the "underbanked".

I always think: "lucky them ..."

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#214

Post by starguide77 »

ditonal wrote: post #90
rburhum wrote: post #48

I understand that many give Robinhood crap because it is not "sophisticated enough" or because of the Gamestop fiasco. Although many startups like to claim that they are "democratizing [x]", I honestly believe they did it. I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often. Even myself, who used to only trade a couple of times a year, s…

Index funds democratized investing. Robinhood “democratized” the worst part of investing and exposed unsophisticated investors to the instruments they are most likely to underperform on. Individual stock picking is probably worse than indexes but fine, however the incentive to day trade or trade complex derivatives is almost certainly going to hurt people far more often than a Vanguard account. It’s not a coincidence…

When you say "It’s awful at order execution, so you get worst prices on things." What does "worst price" represent? How do you get a "Worst price" than anywhere else?

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#215

Post by ziml77 »

caymanjim wrote: post #57
mulcahey wrote: post #18

I remember seeing their first public demo at LA Hacks in 2014. Seemed like a couple of kids right out of college. They had the iPhone's screen hooked up to the projector and one of their friends kept sending them silly text messages the whole time that they had to dismiss. This was before the Do Not Disturb feature came out. I remember wondering how it took so long for someone to make a half decent stock trading app…

I know better, and I still use Robinhood. I also use Fidelity, but their mobile and web apps suck beyond description, and used to use Scottrade, who also suck. Robinhood doesn't just look better (although that's important); it's easier to use and faster; bank transfers are WAY easier; you don't have to jump through hoops to enable options trading (which means a lot of people who shouldn't trade options now do, but it…

I also know better and still use Robinhood. I don't day trade (actually can't since I work in finance) and I haven't even considered options or buying on margin. So none of those were what drew me to using Robinhood. Instead it was that the experience of trading via their app was excellent.

Maybe others have gotten better now, but I really don't see a dire need to switch.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#216

Post by MangoCoffee »

i have $22k in Robinhood as "play money" to trade and learn. i lost $400 on AMD calls. WSB said the first time is free but i didn't win at the Casino. after my first failed calls, i just buy and sell stock. i bought 600ish HP stocks when it was low and sell it too soon when HP stock went up.

overall, Robinhood have the best UI compare to tdameritrade and it isn't too bad if you just do normal trade and not options.

one thing that Robinhood did that disrupt the retail trade is their no fee. tdameritrade used to charge $7 to buy/sell stock.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#217

Post by gjs278 »

ditonal wrote: post #90
rburhum wrote: post #48

I understand that many give Robinhood crap because it is not "sophisticated enough" or because of the Gamestop fiasco. Although many startups like to claim that they are "democratizing [x]", I honestly believe they did it. I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often. Even myself, who used to only trade a couple of times a year, s…

Index funds democratized investing. Robinhood “democratized” the worst part of investing and exposed unsophisticated investors to the instruments they are most likely to underperform on. Individual stock picking is probably worse than indexes but fine, however the incentive to day trade or trade complex derivatives is almost certainly going to hurt people far more often than a Vanguard account. It’s not a coincidence…

get over yourself. you are so uninformed it’s not even funny.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#218

Post by this_user »

ditonal wrote: post #90
rburhum wrote: post #48

I understand that many give Robinhood crap because it is not "sophisticated enough" or because of the Gamestop fiasco. Although many startups like to claim that they are "democratizing [x]", I honestly believe they did it. I have many friends that never traded before, and after they got their Robinhood account they feel comfortable enough to do it often. Even myself, who used to only trade a couple of times a year, s…

Index funds democratized investing. Robinhood “democratized” the worst part of investing and exposed unsophisticated investors to the instruments they are most likely to underperform on. Individual stock picking is probably worse than indexes but fine, however the incentive to day trade or trade complex derivatives is almost certainly going to hurt people far more often than a Vanguard account. It’s not a coincidence…

> Finally, the GameStop fiasco was unforgivable and only a naive fool would accept the explanation given. Citadel is the MAJORITY of Robinhood revenue and was opposite that trade.

Only someone who doesn't understand how any of this works would believe these absurd conspiracy theories.

1) Citadel is one of FIVE of wholesale market markets RH use. Even if they did refuse to accept orders for GME, why wouldn't their four main competitors not happily accept them if it meant blowing up the biggest player in the field? They have no incentive to help Citadel. In fact, they have a clear financial incentive to do the opposite.

2) Why would RH care if Citadel went away? Citadel is one of their five 'suppliers' if you will. If Citadel disappeared overnight, RH would just route their order to the others. It makes absolutely no difference to them. They just route to whoever currently pays the most for orderflow.

3) RH customers are extremely small players with next to no capital between them. Cutting them off makes no difference, because it was professionals with real money driving the squeeze at that point. They recognised that they could make a ton of money, and put a bunch of competitors out of business in the process, so they kept hammering the stock.

4) The claim that Citadel itself even had a GME short position (beyond their MM inventory) is baseless. Citadel Advisor's previous 13F filing shows that they were outright LONG GME stock, were LONG GME calls, and were LONG GME puts. So while those puts will have lost money, the other two positions will have GAINED MASSIVELY during the squeeze. Their short exposure was mainly via the money that they lent to Melvin Cap during the squeeze.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#219

Post by dmoy »

starguide77 wrote: post #214
ditonal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Index funds democratized investing. Robinhood “democratized” the worst part of investing and exposed unsophisticated investors to the instruments they are most likely to underperform on. Individual stock picking is probably worse than indexes but fine, however the incentive to day trade or trade complex derivatives is almost certainly going to hurt people far more often than a Vanguard account. It’s not a coincidence…

When you say "It’s awful at order execution, so you get worst prices on things." What does "worst price" represent? How do you get a "Worst price" than anywhere else?

If you're willing to read a lot, this is a decent overview:

https://www.stockbrokers.com/guides/order-execution

Also here's the disclosure from IBKR, which is probably the polar opposite from robin hood in terms of favorable order execution

https://gdcdyn.interactivebrokers.com/Universal/servlet/Regi...

I know the first link said fidelity is better, but that's fidelity vs ibkr-lite, not ibkr-pro.

Re: Robinhood S-1 IPO

#220

Post by vasco »

CapriciousCptl wrote: post #170

Per-user revenue was $109 for 2020. My goodness payment for order flow and cryptocurrency rebates are lucrative.

Just like "no fee" money exchanges in airports with huge spreads. Same business but internet scale and with the new hype of investing.
Post reply on HN