Remember when Game Stop and AMC, along with a few others were pumping like crazy on the stock market. Everyone who invested early into Game Stop or AMC made money. Also, those who followed the Reddit groups suggesting what to buy, knew where to put speculation money. It was like retail investors are finally impacted the markets for the people. Retail investor are regular people investing in IPOs or stocks on NYSE, etc. Then you have hedge fund companies that control millions or billions of dollars and must make sure that the funds they oversee stays in the green or mitigate the risks. Usually it is the big corporations, hedge fund managers, and media that move the markets. Suffice it to say it was an amazing time to be in the markets.
During that time a popular app for stock investing was Robinhood, it stands on allowing retail investors to learn and invest in the stock markets confidently. Robinhood also got a bad rep for essentially blocking people from investing in a “volatile” stock, like GME and AMC during the influx of orders. It did hurt them as being the “people’s choice” for investing in stocks, but I would say there are still some good things about using Robinhood as a brokerage account.
Fees
Robinhood fees are substantially lower than other brokers, in fact, the fees on Robinhood were unheard of, it really started a trend in other brokers. Robinhood offers zero commission fees. Grant it, the brokers like AmeriTrade and Charles Swab can provide extremely great customer service and are proven brokers to invest with.
How Does Robinhood Make Money?
You may be asking how Robinhood makes money if it does not have commission fees? Well as with any app there is a subscription fee for utilizing their gold service. The gold service allows you to get cutting edge information through Morningstar and gives you access to margin (ability to borrow capital). Regulatory trading fees, certain transfer fees and certain services are also how Robinhood makes money. But if you are not using any of those services mentioned then really you are not paying for much other than capital gains for long-term or short-term trading.
Why I like Robinhood
Cryptocurrency Ownership
Even though other companies have been extremely competitive for Robinhood when it comes to investing in stocks, the fact that I can purchase digital assets for no commission fees with Robinhood is a major key. Most other centralize crypto exchanges (CEXs) will charge you a fee for investing, that’s not excluding gas fees. Now Robinhood will still charge you gas fees based on the blockchain you are using to transfer funds to but that’s just how Web3 is. Obviously, there are ways around gas fees, especially if you utilize decentralized exchanges (DEXs), dapps, bridges, wrap tokens or different blockchain that have cheaper gas fees.
But I like to utilize Robinhood for that alone, and now you can own your tokens. Before you could buy cryptocurrency from Robinhood, but you did not really own it. You made fiat (money) if the digital asset went up or down. How I like to use Robinhood is buy the digital assets that I like and transfer to a hot wallet like MetaMask to get my tokens off and then use that for purchasing products on Web3.
Stocks and Option Trading
I still invest in stocks on Robinhood, but this is not my long-term account, I tend to invest in growth stocks or stocks that have strong speculation. I also like Robinhood platform for option trading its super easy to use, other brokers do seem more difficult to use. Robinhood makes it plan and comfortable when trading options.
Why I dislike Robinhood
Although during the meme stocks, every broker was halting investing in the GME it still left a bad taste for many investors on Robinhood. Also, the amount of digital assets offered on Robinhood is not large, so you will need to use other exchanges for other coins or tokens. In addition, Robinhood is a centralized entity, so you must deal with the decisions of the organization or LLC, like the GME pump situation. If Robinhood was decentralized, it would be hard to halt purchasing in the exchange.
Conclusion
Robinhood can still be utilized as an investing tool. The ease of the application and simplistic nature of gathering information makes it perfect for investors beginning to explore the markets. I would warn you though it is important to understand your risk when investing in the markets (bear/down or bull/up). Furthermore, I usually only use Robinhood for buying cryptocurrency, speculation stocks and option trading but have a long-term brokerage account with Charles Swab where I buy and hold long term. It is important to diversify where you allocate you assets. Remember that you should always do your own research and that I am not a financial advisor, just hopefully dropping some knowledge for you. All the best.
If you don’t have Robinhood and you are interested, you can get a free stock. Click the link, no pressure at all.
