Anyone use Robinhood?

[so.mpls]

For those who haven't heard of it it's a mobile stock trading platform with no commission and no fees.  It just became available on Android today and I'm thinking about buying a few stocks with some extra cash for fun. Anyone use it?

[harshalpatel]

Yes I used it for iPhone for a few months and then stopped; they just released an Android app this week.

Like:
- Easy to use
- Zero Commission of course
- Great to just buy one or a few shares of a stock here and there

Dislike:
- As of July, not able to auto reinvest dividends
- No web interface. Something are better to do on a laptop vs. phone

I personally will stick with ShareBuilder; low cost and lot's of functionality.

I'm not sure the long term viability of RobinHood. They need to earn revenue in ways besides interest on margin accounts.

[mrpercentage]

I like it.

Pros:
No fees <---- massively huge

Cons:
Agree with the auto reinvest.
No auto rebalancing.
No roth.
No 401k.
No retirement tax sheltered accounts.

Suggestion:
The absence of fee nature can be a liability if you don't check your behavior. Fast buy and selling will hit you hard tax time-- and its oddly attractive because of the zero fee-- don't get suckered. I suggest just building into a small number of selections. This will make you choose more wisely and you will be less apt to fall victim in trading. I have traded more than I realized at first having fun with it at the start. Now Im consolidated in only 4 companies. Easier to track with more confidence and unwillingness to trade on news. (easier to manage)

Also, should Robinhood not be able maintain itself in the long haul, and is bought/sold/rolled into something with charges. You don't want to be stuck with 1 share in 50 companies. That would suck come sell time.

I do really like it though. Highly recommended *with caution not to trade in false confidence due to zero fees*

[raynor]

@mrpercentage raises the biggest drawbacks of RobinHood.

The zero commission will drive you to buying and selling more often than you would otherwise.

This psychological effect of zero commission can devastate your returns. You'll constantly buy and sell with whatever the flavor of the day is.

Also as of end of July, RobinHood does not integrate with Mint.com; huge drawback if you use Mint for finance management.

[so.mpls]

I'm a little confused as to why buying and selling a lot would be a bad thing; tax was mentioned, but if I have a big tax bill doesn't that just mean I had a lot of capital gains?  And isn't that a good thing?

Forgive my ignorance, I'm new to investing anything other than in vanguard index and a company pension fund.

[tdogz]

[...]Also, should Robinhood not be able maintain itself in the long haul, and is bought/sold/rolled into something with charges. You don't want to be stuck with 1 share in 50 companies. That would suck come sell time. [...]

That's my biggest concern. I don't want to be stuck in 50 different small positions and have the company fold, get bought out, etc. and then have to sell the shares in those positions with a fee. For that reason, I'm only in 5 different stocks at any one time with Robinhood (at least until I feel more secure that they'll keep the no fee model going forward).

If/when they offer IRAs, I'd happily liquidate my taxable account at Robinhood and move it into an IRA there. Then if something happens to Robinhood's current model I can just roll over the funds into my Vanguard IRA.

[raynor]

Even without taxes and commissions, studies have shown people who buy and sell constantly have lower returns that those who buy and hold. Anomalies obviously exist, but in general I believe it is true. 

[mrpercentage]

I favor my scottrade account. As long as you are buying with a couple thousand you are still paying fees that are lower than vanguard.

With robinhood
I really like that you can build into a position in small amounts. It has a lot of potential but doesn't have the platform of scottrade. That said, the day of the flash crash scottrade wasn't letting me log on to watch live streaming action. It crashed and locked up on me 3 times before I gave up. Robin Hood was still working as far as I know. Every time I looked at my phone it was.