The race to zero in endless online brokerage-fee war already has been won

[rational_chaos]

Glad to see the Rule 606 PFOF revenue model was brought to the attention of the thread as this is, indeed, a major stream of income for the Robinhood business model. As amusing as this is going to sound, I did some "tests" of the execution quality of trades placed using the Robinhood app. They weren't as bad as I expected they would be but they were certainly not as good as the average sucker would assume they would be.

Then again I doubt most of the people (I hate the term millennial since one could argue that I meet some of the criteria for that designation) buying odd-lots realize they losing a penny here and there from piss poor fills. Now that I think about it, trading odd-lot quantities will cause an order to be labelled "retail" and that same order coming from Robinhood must ultimately be given the label "nOOb retail sucker" (for lack of a better family-friendly term).

Don't bother contacting Robinhood support though, they won't refund any of your pennies, even if you present them with level 2 and T/S data they still give you a cookie cutter response that ultimately leads to a dead end. Instead, go sign up for commission free OPTIONS trading https://www.jellifin.com/ (no affiliation I just think it is f-ing hilarious that this might actually happen). Just in time for the market top.

 

[JefeTrader]

Don't bother contacting Robinhood support though, they won't refund any of your pennies, even if you present them with level 2 and T/S data they still give you a cookie cutter response that ultimately leads to a dead end. Instead, go sign up for commission free OPTIONS trading https://www.jellifin.com/ (no affiliation I just think it is f-ing hilarious that this might actually happen). Just in time for the market top.

How is Jellifin's platform and user experience? Thanks!

 

[i960]

Margin and other stuff is nice, but not enough. What really makes the mint is that HFT firms pay them to route their orders to them (aka as "pay for flow").

Yep - and this brings up another potential angle where they could be seriously hamstrung if PFOF were to become heavily regulated or outright banned.

 

[jeb9999]

It is not easy to find financial information about Robinhood Financial.

Brokerage firms should all be required to release detailed financial reports.

As of 12/31/2016 they have only $5.9 million in net equity. The parent company doesn't share the wealth.

With over 2 Million customers that isn't even $3 a customer.

They would have to use 17% of their net equity to mail each customer a letter.

 

[Bekim]

What does everyone thing the cheapest platform is for trading options? I'm at OptionsHouse and Tradestation. I want to leave TradeStation maybe for tastytrade.

 

[Millionaire]

especially when the inevitable market downturn happens and all the millennial mobile-phone traders start getting their asses handed to them.

The market is fiercer than nature...and more dramatic then any movie.
I personally love those relatively rare tidal wave market crashes like 1929, 1987, 2000, 2008 (and everything else in between) -- it's beautiful, and raw.

That clip doesn't do the Collapse & Tsunami scene justice, this one is epic, especially if you like Sia .

 

[Rams Fan]

Considering they raised $176 million in venture financing to get that whole thing operational, Robinhood can certainly continue the free trading model for quite a while. But it will be interesting to see if their tune changes when that pile of borrowed cash starts dwindling down and the pressure to make profits like a real brokerage kicks in, especially when the inevitable market downturn happens and all the millennial mobile-phone traders start getting their asses handed to them.

Hall of Fame post

 

[The_Krakenite]

Well, since you had to bump up this ancient thread again...