5 ms·

Robinhood Files S-1

88 points by nslice 5y ago

strikelaserclaw 5y ago
guess there is too much stupid money flying around to not file at this point in time.
- whydoineedthis 5y ago
  I have been thinking of opening a deli myself. If you can't beat em, join em.
  - strikelaserclaw 5y ago
    they must have god tier sandwiches.
awb 5y ago
So disappointed with their performance during $GME. I’m sure a lot of people will make money in this IPO but I can’t support it.
- apparissus 5y ago
  The fact that they weathered that so unscathed gives me begrudging belief that their IPO will go well, at least short-term. I have heard so many apologists for Robinhood but never heard it addressed why they couldn't have implemented whatever measures of protection they "had to" in a stock-agnostic way.
  - hervature 5y ago
    The "stock-agnostic way" metric is volatility. GME experienced volatility never seen before. Thus measures never taken before are justified. Given your quotes around "had to" I suspect you don't believe Robinhood was essentially forced into these measures. If you're going to hate Robinhood, it should be because they created a gamified app that emboldened people to jump into the GME debacle and for creating a service that goes down in times of heavy trading, not because they had to take measures to reduce their risk profile.
  - kasey_junk 5y ago
    Collateral obligations aren’t stock agnostic at the central clearing level.
  - gshulegaard 5y ago
    I am not well versed in the financial services industry but this article seemed to offer at least a plausible explanation for why Robinhood (and other capital limited brokers) stopped buys on GME specifically: https://stu2b50.dev/posts/why-robinhood-d3580b https://stu2b50.dev/posts/why-robinhood-d3580b I want to be upfront in that I can't verify the accuracy of this article, and I still look askance at Robinhood personally; however, it did pique my interest in keeping an eye out for further analyses of the incident as more details emerge. And it seems like there is plausibility to Robinhood's claims that they had to halt buys. And...on the face of it, I am all for regulation that places risk management requirements on financial firms.
ProAm 5y ago
They shouldnt be allowed to be a trading platform, let alone be publicly traded.
- zbaylin 5y ago
  Why do you think that? Does this stem from recent events involving $GME?
  - ProAm 5y ago
    Yes
dharma1 5y ago
didn't this happen a month ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561321
- nslice 5y ago
  Oops I never saw another post on the YC forum regarding this
ar_lan 5y ago
I am interested to know what percentage of their user base they lost after the past few months. I know I personally cancelled my account with Robinhood, but I don't know if I'm in the minority or not. I just don't see the point of them anymore. Once the other trading platforms started offering $0 transactions, I saw way less value in Robinhood - then, following that, the argument was "fractional shares", which many other platforms offer. Is it just that they are the most famous name in the retail investor space?
- jc713 5y ago
  I personally left to Schwab after all of the issues RH had with poor customer service and services going down all the time.
- voidfunc 5y ago
  Probably a small but not insignificant loss. I don't think the WSB / Memestock users are the majority of the platform. For a lot of people I know RH still has the best feeling UX and easiest access for simple investing. I think they're fine but if pessimism means the stock takes a haircut or dive when it starts trading I'm going to buy-in. There really is not a similar investing app that appeals to the Gen-Z / Millenial market as well as Robinhood does.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Absolutely this. Too many people overfocus on the $0 trading fees because that is how Robinhood initially differentiated itself, but it is absolutely the experience that is keeping people today. $0 fees have been commonplace for a few years now.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  I don't think there is another broker with zero commission options trading is there? That seems like a big reason for a lot of people
  - mandeepj 5y ago
notyourday 5y ago
Whatever you want to say about Robinhood as a firm, I think we have to admit that their mobile interface blew away their competition.
pwned1 5y ago
As much crap as Robinhood gets for their activities around GME, their app is the easiest to use in the space. It's simply fantastic.
onemoresoop 5y ago
I'm interested to know who is frustrated by their software bugs. There have been easily fixable basic bugs unaddressed for quite some time, more than a year to be specific, and those bugs cause traders frustration (and financial loss) in volatile times. For example you want to buy or sell and the UI has an old state and unless refreshed it would let you do so. The UI looks pretty but it's purposely confusing, for example Market Buy, Limit Buy, Market Sell and Limit Sell look almost identical and you are funneled to chose the option that makes RH most money. I even accidentally sold instead of buying and bought instead of selling but luckily I reverted the action before the price changed too much. I lost money several times because of the poor UI and was wondering what others think of their '0 commission' marketing. It is deceptive, the price to pay in RH is quite high, I think I've given them at least a few hundred a month (they've been taking). There are other issues that I am not going to get too deep into regarding mining trading data, which apparently is how they make their big money. That is the leverage to enable the retail investors to bleed cash in the long run. I've been thinking about the parallel between Robin Hood and RobinHood(LLC), and the latter seems to me like an impostor, it is far from the legendary folkloric outlaw who was robbing the rich to give to the poor. It's quite the opposite in its intention in some ways. But I'll give them credit for priming me for trading. Anyhow, I rolled up my command line interface for RH. I can easily do limit buys and sells, cancel all orders, and so on with the just one or two keywords while I see the real time data in front of me. The API wrapper for RH is available online for whoever is interested. I keep on improving on my scripts little by little and it's fun to program again in Python. It would be nice to script up a bot that takes advantage of small price fluctuations to generate a modest stream if income.
Multiplayer 5y ago
FWIW, Robinhood has zero fees on crypto! I believe they are the least expensive option on bitcoin, ether, etc. You don't actually take possession of the coin - no wallet, etc, purely custodial. But saves the 3.5% bitcoin fee from Coinbase!
TheAdamist 5y ago
Will the app block shorting robinhood? Does robinhood automatically take the long position? Can they 'insider' trade based on knowledge of their customers positions on themselves and knowledge of their own upcoming financial results? Seems like ripe for shenanigans.
newdude116 5y ago
Get a real broker. And if you are trading on your phone, you are probably doing it wrong. (Feel free to vote me down).
- Marciplan 5y ago
  Why am I doing it wrong?
  - newdude116 5y ago
    What are you trying to achieve? Either you do buy and hold or you do trigger trading (expecting good sales, acquisition announcement etc.) or you do HFT. I doubt that you are able to do HFT. I know some people that are extremely successful with the first two. So what is left? Trading too much. And very likely you are doing this on your phone. How often do you check the ticker? The answer will give you a good idea about what you are doing.
    - Marciplan 5y ago
      I buy stocks every month (of what I can “miss”) and do that via an app. I wonder why that is “the wrong way”?
nerdkid93 5y ago
Why did you post this? Their S-1 still hasn't been publically released yet, and this news that they filed it with the SEC is from ~1 month ago.
- nslice 5y ago
  I wasn’t able to find another post on HN regarding their announcement

Robinhood Files S-1

88 points by nslice 5y ago

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

guess there is too much stupid money flying around to not file at this point in time.

whydoineedthis 5y ago
I have been thinking of opening a deli myself. If you can't beat em, join em.
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  they must have god tier sandwiches.

awb 5y ago

So disappointed with their performance during $GME. I’m sure a lot of people will make money in this IPO but I can’t support it.

apparissus 5y ago
The fact that they weathered that so unscathed gives me begrudging belief that their IPO will go well, at least short-term. I have heard so many apologists for Robinhood but never heard it addressed why they couldn't have implemented whatever measures of protection they "had to" in a stock-agnostic way.
- hervature 5y ago
  The "stock-agnostic way" metric is volatility. GME experienced volatility never seen before. Thus measures never taken before are justified. Given your quotes around "had to" I suspect you don't believe Robinhood was essentially forced into these measures. If you're going to hate Robinhood, it should be because they created a gamified app that emboldened people to jump into the GME debacle and for creating a service that goes down in times of heavy trading, not because they had to take measures to reduce their risk profile.
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  Collateral obligations aren’t stock agnostic at the central clearing level.
- gshulegaard 5y ago
  I am not well versed in the financial services industry but this article seemed to offer at least a plausible explanation for why Robinhood (and other capital limited brokers) stopped buys on GME specifically: https://stu2b50.dev/posts/why-robinhood-d3580b https://stu2b50.dev/posts/why-robinhood-d3580b I want to be upfront in that I can't verify the accuracy of this article, and I still look askance at Robinhood personally; however, it did pique my interest in keeping an eye out for further analyses of the incident as more details emerge. And it seems like there is plausibility to Robinhood's claims that they had to halt buys. And...on the face of it, I am all for regulation that places risk management requirements on financial firms.

ProAm 5y ago

They shouldnt be allowed to be a trading platform, let alone be publicly traded.

zbaylin 5y ago
Why do you think that? Does this stem from recent events involving $GME?
- ProAm 5y ago
  Yes

dharma1 5y ago

didn't this happen a month ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26561321

nslice 5y ago
Oops I never saw another post on the YC forum regarding this

ar_lan 5y ago

I am interested to know what percentage of their user base they lost after the past few months. I know I personally cancelled my account with Robinhood, but I don't know if I'm in the minority or not. I just don't see the point of them anymore. Once the other trading platforms started offering $0 transactions, I saw way less value in Robinhood - then, following that, the argument was "fractional shares", which many other platforms offer. Is it just that they are the most famous name in the retail investor space?

jc713 5y ago
I personally left to Schwab after all of the issues RH had with poor customer service and services going down all the time.
voidfunc 5y ago
Probably a small but not insignificant loss. I don't think the WSB / Memestock users are the majority of the platform. For a lot of people I know RH still has the best feeling UX and easiest access for simple investing. I think they're fine but if pessimism means the stock takes a haircut or dive when it starts trading I'm going to buy-in. There really is not a similar investing app that appeals to the Gen-Z / Millenial market as well as Robinhood does.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Absolutely this. Too many people overfocus on the $0 trading fees because that is how Robinhood initially differentiated itself, but it is absolutely the experience that is keeping people today. $0 fees have been commonplace for a few years now.
missedthecue 5y ago
I don't think there is another broker with zero commission options trading is there? That seems like a big reason for a lot of people
- mandeepj 5y ago

notyourday 5y ago

Whatever you want to say about Robinhood as a firm, I think we have to admit that their mobile interface blew away their competition.

pwned1 5y ago

As much crap as Robinhood gets for their activities around GME, their app is the easiest to use in the space. It's simply fantastic.

onemoresoop 5y ago

I'm interested to know who is frustrated by their software bugs. There have been easily fixable basic bugs unaddressed for quite some time, more than a year to be specific, and those bugs cause traders frustration (and financial loss) in volatile times. For example you want to buy or sell and the UI has an old state and unless refreshed it would let you do so. The UI looks pretty but it's purposely confusing, for example Market Buy, Limit Buy, Market Sell and Limit Sell look almost identical and you are funneled to chose the option that makes RH most money. I even accidentally sold instead of buying and bought instead of selling but luckily I reverted the action before the price changed too much. I lost money several times because of the poor UI and was wondering what others think of their '0 commission' marketing. It is deceptive, the price to pay in RH is quite high, I think I've given them at least a few hundred a month (they've been taking). There are other issues that I am not going to get too deep into regarding mining trading data, which apparently is how they make their big money. That is the leverage to enable the retail investors to bleed cash in the long run. I've been thinking about the parallel between Robin Hood and RobinHood(LLC), and the latter seems to me like an impostor, it is far from the legendary folkloric outlaw who was robbing the rich to give to the poor. It's quite the opposite in its intention in some ways. But I'll give them credit for priming me for trading. Anyhow, I rolled up my command line interface for RH. I can easily do limit buys and sells, cancel all orders, and so on with the just one or two keywords while I see the real time data in front of me. The API wrapper for RH is available online for whoever is interested. I keep on improving on my scripts little by little and it's fun to program again in Python. It would be nice to script up a bot that takes advantage of small price fluctuations to generate a modest stream if income.

Multiplayer 5y ago

FWIW, Robinhood has zero fees on crypto! I believe they are the least expensive option on bitcoin, ether, etc. You don't actually take possession of the coin - no wallet, etc, purely custodial. But saves the 3.5% bitcoin fee from Coinbase!

TheAdamist 5y ago

Will the app block shorting robinhood? Does robinhood automatically take the long position? Can they 'insider' trade based on knowledge of their customers positions on themselves and knowledge of their own upcoming financial results? Seems like ripe for shenanigans.

newdude116 5y ago

Get a real broker. And if you are trading on your phone, you are probably doing it wrong. (Feel free to vote me down).

Marciplan 5y ago
Why am I doing it wrong?
- newdude116 5y ago
  What are you trying to achieve? Either you do buy and hold or you do trigger trading (expecting good sales, acquisition announcement etc.) or you do HFT. I doubt that you are able to do HFT. I know some people that are extremely successful with the first two. So what is left? Trading too much. And very likely you are doing this on your phone. How often do you check the ticker? The answer will give you a good idea about what you are doing.
  - Marciplan 5y ago
    I buy stocks every month (of what I can “miss”) and do that via an app. I wonder why that is “the wrong way”?

nerdkid93 5y ago

Why did you post this? Their S-1 still hasn't been publically released yet, and this news that they filed it with the SEC is from ~1 month ago.

nslice 5y ago
I wasn’t able to find another post on HN regarding their announcement