Comment by justboxing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justboxing | Hacker News Reader

E*Trade, Schwab, and pretty much every other brokerage is playing catchup with RobinHood, which has had free trades on stocks and options from the very beginning. This has caused a steady exodus of users on these commission charging platforms, crossing over to RH. It's especially pronounced with Millenials and Gen-Z / "Post millenials".

You may not always get the best pricing, and also there are no market trades as of this writing on RobinHood, but the RH UI handily beats everyone else in terms of ease of use and simplicity.

The options trading functionality, for instance is very simple. You select options and then it presents you with a list of (screen) options on whether you think stock will go up, down, or sideways. Based on that, they show you low risk, high risk call options, put options or stangles and straddles. You can place a trade with a couple of taps. If you want to get more specific and sophisticated, you can choose the expiry dates and select your own call / put options.

Compare this to TD Ameritrades UI and Schwab's UI, it looks like some guys from the 90s, stuck in the 90s, are still working on the UI team.

Truly clunky, horrible, confusing and annoying.

I don’t disagree that Robinhood has a better UI for casual users, but the rest of their UX is awful.

Trades take considerably longer to execute than on other platforms. They tend to hide things that are “advanced”, even when it’s important for a trader to learn to use them (for example, the default Buy type is a Market Order instead of a Limit).

Most brokers have protections in place so you don’t shoot yourself in the foot. For example, say you placed a sell order on Robinhood, but want to cancel it. You have to go through 3-4 clicks to get to the order record and cancel it. Oh, and that horrible UX is a chatbot.

Robinhood strikes me as an app that was designed by folks that have limited trading experience. On the mobile app, you can’t select to view your positions by Total Return and simultaneously view your watchlist by Last Price; you must select one or the other. The watchlist of stocks is of course not going to have a total return, so the app just displays “N/A”.

What Robinhood has actually managed to capture is the “bro trader” mentality of the Trump era bull market, and for that they deserve some credit. Check out /r/wallstreetbets for examples. I think a lot of people associate millennials with being broke and having no concept of financial security, however Robinhood is making a name for themselves as the broker of millennials. It’s just a shame RH is so terrible.

I agree RH isn’t a power tool like other but I know several people who got their feet wet with it and are now considering moving.

Shameless plug for my employer TradeStation. We just launched zero commission Friday[0]. I’d be interested to hear a critique of our web/mobile ui. It’s more trader oriented but I’m not an expert

[0] https://www.tradestation.com/promo/tsgo/

I think this logic is hilarious.

You really believe that the “millennials and zoomers” actually have enough capital to compete with these traditional brokerages?

Robinhood doesn’t event pay out dividends.

You’re overselling it. Their education for options is basic at best. PLUS anyone who is serious about playing options should actually invest time in learning it.

If anything, its cleaner ui makes it easier for said demographic to LOSE money.

You may think RH is large, but I’m guessing your vantage point is from within the tech bubble.

In addition to learning the theory, anyone that wants to trade options beyond the just messing around level should really learn and use whatever their broker's desktop trading platform is. All the ones I've looked at provide far more information (the greeks, IV, and lots of other stuff) than the same brokers' web interfaces. Also as a bonus the data update is much closer to real time and not every minute or so.

> Robinhood doesn’t event pay out dividends.

Hmm? Of course they pay out dividends. I don't even see how it would be legal for a broker to keep a customers dividends.

https://support.robinhood.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001227206...

Yes, can confirm that they pay dividends. I use Robin Hood and get dividends on several stocks. I’d imagine it would be illegal to withhold dividends.

Huh? I get my dividends hitting my account when stuff I hold in RH pays out.

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