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Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 19th, 2020, 2:29 pm
by feder1
This is coming to the UK sometime and was mentioned on Bloomberg today.

I might be worth looking closer at it.

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 19th, 2020, 2:54 pm
by OLTB
Robinhood was doing the rounds on Twitter over the last few days because of this tragic story...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -debt.html

A misunderstanding it appears - some people need to be protected from their own exuberance and perceived knowledge of these complex instruments.

Cheers, OLTB.

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 19th, 2020, 3:11 pm
by EthicsGradient
OLTB wrote:Robinhood was doing the rounds on Twitter over the last few days because of this tragic story...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -debt.html

A misunderstanding it appears - some people need to be protected from their own exuberance and perceived knowledge of these complex instruments.

Cheers, OLTB.

I just had a candidate for Private Eye's "Malgorithms" - inappropriate adverts, served up by keyword matching - when reading that Mail article. I got "make money by trading commission-free stocks. 64% of clients lose money using this."

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 19th, 2020, 3:18 pm
by OLTB
feder1 wrote:This is coming to the UK sometime and was mentioned on Bloomberg today.

I might be worth looking closer at it.


I already use Trading 212 for my commission free trading within my ISA - no issues at all, although only the main stocks (within the US/Germany/UK) and ETFs are available (so no AIM if that's your bag).

Cheers, OLTB.

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 19th, 2020, 3:20 pm
by OLTB
EthicsGradient wrote:I just had a candidate for Private Eye's "Malgorithms" - inappropriate adverts, served up by keyword matching - when reading that Mail article. I got "make money by trading commission-free stocks. 64% of clients lose money using this."


I have not heard of Malgorithms before - but it's a wonderful description! Quite a warning especially following the story.

Cheers, OLTB.

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 20th, 2020, 4:46 pm
by Pete675
But is commission free investing really free - surely the spreads are wider, compared to what's on offer from the likes of HL or AJ Bell?

The target market seems to be the inexperienced and financially unsophisticated, occasionally with disastrous consequences, as above.

Re: Robinhood.com - commission free investing

Posted: June 20th, 2020, 4:58 pm
by Lootman
Pete675 wrote:But is commission free investing really free - surely the spreads are wider, compared to what's on offer from the likes of HL or AJ Bell?

Spreads should not be wider for exchange-traded securities.

But if it is an OTC-type security then your counterparty is the broker and they can manipulate the spread of course.

Trades won't be free because of stamp duty, where applicable. And because of spreads, where appreciable. In the US, with no stamp duty and tight spreads, online trading has become effectively free.