Pandemic Villains: Robinhood

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/pandemic-villains-robinhood

What's that saying; If it’s free, you’re probably the product

 

Yep not good..

Robinhood Has Gamified Online Trading Into an Addiction

 

Just speculating... The US can’t have CFDs, so maybe their brand tapped into that type of
consumer. People at home with lots of time on their hands, stimulus checks, fed pumping money and a big bull market.

In any case, I’m pretty sure all US brokers offer free commissions now. I haven’t heard any issues with the fills on the free commission accounts. Investors win IMHO.

Makes the $15-$20 commissions on the ASX look a little large in comparison.

 

Robinhood found itself in hot water after it blocked users from buying GameStop (GME) stock, as well as a few others, after a surge in popularity

 

Lucky Luke

 

Robinhood Financial was fined $70 million recently

FINRA Orders Record Financial Penalties Against Robinhood Financial LLC | FINRA.org

 

The Robinhood Conundrum

Ben Carlson

Robinhood now has close to 18 million active users on its platform and manages around $80 billion in assets. More than half of those 18 million customers said this was their first-ever brokerage account.

And Robinhood believes close to 50% of all new retail funded accounts opened in the U.S. between 2016 and 2021 were done so on its platform.

Robinhood has gotten millions of young people involved in the markets.

This seems bad: Nearly 47% of those users use the product on a daily basis. That’s basically just below the most successful social media companies.



Among those customers who visited the app on a daily basis, the average number of visits was seven per day.

 

US investors checking Australian broking fees

 

Or Vanguard Australia MER.

 

Robinhood Revenue and Usage Statistics (2021)

Robinhood key statistics

• Robinhood generated $682 million in payment-for-order-flow revenue in 2020, a 514 percent increase year-on-year
• It added $3.4 billion to its balance sheet during the GameStop stock squeeze, after suspending trades for a week (TechCrunch)
• In May 2020, Robinhood revealed it had 13 million active users (NYT). We expect that number has climbed to 20 million
• It was recently valued at $20 billion pre-IPO, although secondary shares have valued the company at $40 billion (Quartz)
• Robinhood user average age is 31 (NYT), which is an increase of five years since the app launched in 2015 (WSJ)

 

Robinhood Launches College Tour to Recruit Young Customers

The stock trading app Robinhood, notorious for its actions against GameStop and other “meme stock” investors, has kicked off a nationwide effort to convince students to trade stocks using its app, including a $20,000 giveaway offering to young people.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Robinhood, the online stock trading app, is kicking off a nationwide campaign to appeal to younger traders. The company is attempting to convert college students across the country into Robinhood customers, offering them $15 to trade when they sign up with their school email address and entering them into a $20,000 giveaway.

 

MOney goes from the noobs to the experienced.
Robinhood shows some of the mastery involved in such flows of capital.

 

How I turned $15,000 into $1.2m during the pandemic – then lost it all

I kept the news in all the way out of the terminal until halfway through the airport parking garage, which was as far as I could hold it. It was the kind of announcement that was too voluminous for the inside of a car, so I blurted it out to my parents in the open air in a half-mumble, half-laugh.

“So, umm, I turned $15,000 into $1.2m in the past year.”

They both stopped and looked at me, silent.

“Are you on drugs?” my mom finally asked, anxiety flashing across her face. My dad said nothing. I dispelled her accusation by opening up my investment account on my iPhone and turning the screen towards her to show her the balance.

“Oh my God, are you one of those … GameStop people?” she said, referring to the brief and spectacular rise in stock price of the video game retailer after amateur investors rallied around it in early 2021.

My dad remained silent, in a way that felt more accusing and harder to confront – as if I had suddenly upended his conception of the world. Both of my parents had taken vows of poverty to each other as part of their wedding vows; their guiding philosophy was to “live simply so that others may simply live”. They owned no property because of their choice to be “war tax resisters”, and both had consciously dedicated their careers as a legal aid attorney and a Presbyterian minister to low-paying social justice work at the detriment of material possessions and substantial retirement accounts.

 

Netflix has a documentary on Robinhood and GameStop 'Eat the rich'

 

I have watched it with all the flares and blings.
Interesting YOLO.

 

This coming out also, looks good

 

The poster



Interesting when Wall Street bets was shut down, and Robinhood Suspended GameStop Trading

 

Keith Gill’s net worth: How much did the 'Dumb Money' investor make on GameStop?