Robin Hood is dangerous for the young millennial. Short term trading is really risky and if you have some cash saved up it can make a big difference in the longer term if you don't blow it up or lose it. Being young matters.<p>If you're in Australia and looking for something longer term access to Berkshire Hathaway shares or ETFs <a href="https://getfirststep.com" rel="nofollow">https://getfirststep.com</a> is another service too [no individual shares] its more like wealthfront/betterment/acorns.<p>They fractionalise the investment so you don't need huge amounts which is quite nice.
The way they market this app makes me pretty concerned. It seems like they're advocating short-term trading -- pretty risky behavior. I guess they don't explicitly do this, but the nature of a mobile-only platform, with what looks like no portfolio/risk analysis tools screams short term. Also, the only real reason a commission-free account would be helpful is if you're trading pretty frequently or in very small amounts. I'd rather pay $10/trade for something like Fidelity, Etrade, or the like, and have access to some mediocre portfolio analysis, risk analysis, and research tools, than have only a Buy/Sell button. However, I'd bet that uninformed investors would see this deal and jump right in without considering these things.<p>I guess my TLDR here is that a trading platform's selling point (for the general public) should be tools first, price second; not price first, aesthetics second.
I just installed Robinhood. $0 commissions is a pretty nice rate, so I'll probably transfer my IRA to them. (For prop trading I'm on IB.)<p>But why such a user hostile interface? It's almost as if this thing is made for a techcrunch press release rather than actual use. When signing up, I can't tilt the screen into "I have big thumbs" mode. And mobile-only trading - no webapp. It also only asks me to type my password <i>once</i> on my mobile device, with my fat thumbs. I'm sure that this sounds great to a techcrunch journalist who only has a 401k - "mobile trading for the flexible millenial workforce" - but it's pretty terrible for anyone who actually wants to make real trades.<p>Also simply lovely; I look at a stock chart in the mobile app, and I can't see data older than 1 year. The default is 1 day. But I can watch SPY's last price ticking up and down in realtime, woot! I'm sure I'll also get push notifications for trades. (Disclaimer: I haven't tried to trade yet).<p>I really hope this is a "lean startup" only beta and will be rapidly improved. Right now, the price tag is the only good thing about it.
I may be alone here, but I feel a little uncomfortable trading stocks solely on a mobile device. Maybe I'm just having an old man moment, but I'd rather do something like this on the desktop with easier simultaneous access to data and research.
I read the "How we make our money" page, and if I am reading it right, they only make money on the uninvested balances? It is free ($0) to invest and free to de-vest ($0, 0%), is that right? Seems too good to be true...<p>Also how legal is this company? I've read about small StartUps based on the stock market who then wind up getting in trouble with the FTC.<p>Honestly if this is free investment, then I might start doing some micro-investment. I am been put off the stock market by the overheads of investing/de-vesting (e.g. $20/trade). Although the hassle of filing taxes might still put me off.