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Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

There’s a lot that can be better here and Robinhood’s approach to getting a foothold has been smart.

I use Fidelity for everything, but their software is mediocre at best. I hear vanguard is worse.

The regular banks are ten times worse than fidelity for basic actions.

Other startups that have tried to make this better (Simple Bank comes to mind, but there are a couple of others) typically sell out or only focus on basic banking which is not helpful.

Robinhood has better software and is positioning themselves to be a serious player long term.

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I think vanguard is perfect for the type of investor they attract. I probably log in to my vanguard 2 or 3 times a year. It is set to autodraft from my bank account and buy index funds every month and reinvest the dividends. So it is set it and forget it.

A slick interface and UI team that is trying to figure out ways to increase user engagement is just asking for your users to get in there and gamble away their retirement savings.

Agree completely. I think Vanguard's UI is trying to send the message "if you're logging in you're doing it wrong".

I agree with you both. I'd be worried if Vanguard suddenly became like Robinhood.

There's a new version of the Vanguard app on the App Store called "Beacon" that includes a very useful visual overhaul (account balances & performance are front and center) but keeps that wonderful Vanguard focus on, well, staying the course and not much else.

> I hear vanguard is worse

That might be by design. Vanguard is best used for funds(their index funds are nice).

They don't really want you actively trading or speculating (see quotes by the founder).

Tastyworks has better software for options. TD Ameritrade also has ThinkOrSwim which is pretty good overall. None of those can hold a candle to Robinhood's (perceived!) simplicity - even though I do think it's TOO simple.

I think 'too simple' is like what some search company CEO said to Larry Page about page rank being 'too effective' when Larry/Sergey were trying to license it to him before starting Google (people won't stay on the search portal to look at ads because they find their result too quickly).

It's a lame excuse. None of those old search companies exist anymore.

If you want to drive most users to just use index funds you can have great software that does that while also having great software that allows users to do everything else they may want to do (like have a checking account, wire money to other banks, automatically invest, etc.).

Having shitty software and then pretending it's 'by design' is just a lazy justification.

If Robinhood can build up a userbase by focusing on a neglected area they can expand and take over everyone. Their downward pressure on fees is already a win for users, if they're able to get through growing pains (unacceptable downtime/scale issues) I don't see why they can't be as big as Fidelity.

I don't know if their software is actually that good, but there's definitely an opening here for someone that can get a foothold.

> I think 'too simple' is like what some search company CEO said to Larry Page about page rank being 'too effective'

This is fine for search results. It is NOT fine for complex financial instruments where people can lose money.

There's only so much you can 'simplify'. In this particular case, you can only make the UI itself simpler and easier to understand and operate. They can't make options trading itself any simpler. In other words, they can't make the domain itself any simpler by just throwing UX at it.

Specifically, they can't make it any simpler by hiding information. The information is needed. This is why other trading platforms look 'busy'. Because trading options is not simple. Pretending that they are only lead to losses.

I think we probably actually agree more than we disagree on what we're talking about.

I agree simplicity that hides relevant information is not good.

My complaints about Fidelity are not that it's surfacing too much relevant information.

Some quick things:

- Fidelity has tons of menus that hide things in hard to find places.

- The UI is slow, and the actions are poorly designed. Want to wire money to someone else? That's hidden under transfer -> to bank account -> new bank account -> that I don't own. Everything they have is like this, buried and weirdly named.

- A link might load an entire different section of Fidelity unrelated to your actual account. Tons of spam on the front page about resources that are irrelevant or just trying to sell you some Fidelity crap.

- Want to buy a call option? Small modal pop up window that's hard to use.

I'm not arguing for simplicity by hiding relevant information, I'm arguing for good UX - focus on the stuff that matters and organize things in a way that is actually good for users.

> "This is why other trading platforms look 'busy'. Because trading options is not simple."

I think other platforms look busy not because they're showing relevant information, but because they're hacked together over years by people that previously relied on in-person traders and phone call support (and except for Vanguard, arguably scamming users via active trading fees). It's a mess of legacy systems and UI that doesn't have to get better because there aren't that many players and it's a hard market for competitors to enter.

HavenMoney (acquired by CreditKarma) had an approach to this I really liked, they basically did best practices for most people. Index funds, emergency savings, 401k handling - all automated. Something like this by default that also had a trading platform would be great. It'd also be cool if it always compared a user's active trading to what would have happened if they left their funds in a total market index.

We are not exactly disagreeing :)

The established companies can still be disrupted by great execution. There is potential there. Robinhood can still do great by having an elegant interface AND showing relevant data. Show the greeks, even if that means they will have to come up with fancier indicators.

For instance, Delta. Show me probability of profit instead, right in the list, as it is derived from delta. Show theta, even if you have to come up with a cartoon graphic to illustrate time decay. Show a flame when IV is high.

Suggest other strategies if the trade looks bad. Don't show that something is up 1500% just because there were no bids previously.

And so on.

Not trying to plug tastyworks, but their desktop interface is leaps and bounds ahead of what Robinhood does on either platform, and it is easier to understand too. What they have NOT figured out is how to get the same experience on mobile.

If Robinhood can figure that out, everyone else is in for a bad day (even with their horrible fills).

> HavenMoney (acquired by CreditKarma) had an approach to this I really liked, they basically did best practices for most people. Index funds, emergency savings, 401k handling - all automated.

This is great. Automated investing is the way to go - and can be surprisingly difficult to do. There are platforms that do similar things, at least for index funds, such as Betterment. But they tend to have higher fees than Vanguard.

I don't know, Vanguard is pretty good for what its supposed to be used for. You can get money in and out real fast. Even very large sums of money. You can trade without waiting for full settlement and all that, to make all the proper large rebalancing trades quickly without losses. You can have all your retirement accounts in it and tax management and integration works well.

Their flows are all pretty smooth, you really don't need slick UI to make 3-4 trades a month at most.

Of course you do need slicker UI when you are essentially offering an online casino to your users. Nice colors, engaging UI, etc is important to keep your audience entertained and to have them roll the dice more often.

I would choose Schwab over Robinhood any day of the week. I used robinhood and its data/metrics with stocks was extremely lacking and un-sophisticated. In addition order fulfilled timing was slow, I would never trade large amounts of stock with the app. Its all showy UI and bright colors. Which is fine as it seems to be getting alot of users using that method and the idea of "why use your Dads/Moms trading stock trading platform"?

> I would choose Schwab over Robinhood any day of the week

Don't you have to prove to them that you actually know something about options before they let you trade? Robinhood... you check a box.

Not really. You ask for level 1-4 options trading and they have you select from a dropdown how many years experience you have. It gets approved quickly. I've done this on TDA, IBKR, Merrill Edge.

All brokerages are like that. Back in the early 2000's, when I first enabled options trading, I had to fill out a paper form. This was also mostly just checking a box. If you could put a stamp on an envelope, you were qualified to trade options.

I have a Schwab account, but it really bothers me that they're constantly trying to push their services like financial planning or investment advisors. Even if you look for target-date funds they'll hide the index one and push the expensive active ones. Compared to their website Robinhood is calm and minimalist, at least in my opinion.

TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim (their client they bought out) are both quite good. But not great for novice investors, which is where Robinhood crushed them.

I think it's a net positive thing for people despite the doom and gloom stories we hear.

I'd say "simpler interface" rather than better software. Unless youve seen under the hood of Schwab/TD and Fidelity. I would expect, in some sense that Robinhood has cleaner aspects because of less legacy, but its also may be much less powerful and robust.

I have Fidelity as well and prefer their iOS app (at a glance asset overview) and Active Trader Pro Mac client (options trading) to Robinhood. Different tools for different tastes.

Thanks - I'll check out the Mac Client.

The iOS app is okay, but I think it's extremely slow and a lot of things require the web UI (which has tons of buried menus and hard to find features).

Ah someone mentioned Active Trader, which I think is pretty decent. If you're trading a lot look into Interactive Brokers. I think they're still top of the line for publicly offered trading.

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