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Comment by sxp | Hacker News Reader

They got hit with a $65M SEC settlement for this last December: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinhood_(company)#SEC_Probe_...

This is a clear case of "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product".

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Yeah, but now almost every brokerage is 0 commission unless you are trading large blocks.

And chances are if you're trading large blocks you have a lot of money, making you a premium customer, meaning you get free trades anyway!

Yeah but not all of them are selling order flow. E.g. Vanguard and Fidelity don't sell order flow and haven't blocked purchases of these stocks. They make their money the same way banks do.

Can one buy stocks through Vanguard?

Yes, Vanguard supports individual stocks with no trading fees.

Please stop spreading this meme. If you're actually curious about the role HFT plays in price enhancement for retail trading, check out Matt Levine under section "Robinhood".

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-16/carl-i...

We're suggesting ulterior motive in Robinhood shutting down GME trading. GME has caused Citadel tremendous risks/losses. Citadel loaned $2.75 billion to Melvin before Melvin liquidated over GME.

Maybe Citadel's updated their position but I think it's still shorter-term bearish.

Nothing to do w/ unwanted attention from politicians and regulators?

What does HFT have to do with buying up retail trade streams before they are put on the market? Surely HFT can exist without that.

And the OP is right, the trader is 100% the product in this scenario and the trade stream buyers are the real customers.

I’ll gladly be the product for 0 commission trades.

You're not the product, it's a wrong analogy. You simply pay hidden fees embedded in the slightly higher price you pay.

Will you also have your shares sold out from under you for those same 0 commission trades?

If you're referring to what happened to margin accounts at RH, what does that have to do with 0 commission?

Everyone should contact the SEC to make sure that they don't let them get it away with it this time (even if the SEC did the right thing in December).

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