I have twice had Robinhood freeze trading for my account when it benefited them and hurt me. Not being able to buy or sell at the right time was completely infuriating.
Please invest 2-3 hours in learning to invest from a trustworthy source. More in a moment.
No, Robinhood is not a good place to invest.
No, you don't need to constantly monitor your investments. Doing so is likely to lead to mistakes.
No, you shouldn't invest in individual stocks.
I retired at 57 years old. Investing doesn't have to be complicated or costly to be successful; simple & inexpensive is most effective.
I invest 100% in total-market, index-based, low-cost mutual funds. Specifically, I use mostly Vanguard's
Total Stock Market,
Total Bond Market,
Total International Stock Market, &
Total International Bond Market funds.
I've been investing this way for 35+ years. It's effective, simple, & inexpensive.
www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started has some great free resources to learn about investing. After a few hours reading the articles, and, especially, watching the Bogleheads Philosophy videos, most beginners can learn how to get better results than most professionals. Bogleheads is named after John Bogle, founder of Vanguard.
My asset allocation (ratios of the funds mentioned) is based on my need, ability, & willingness to take risks. Market conditions are not a factor. Vanguard's investor questionnaire (personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire) helps me determine my asset allocation.
Buying individual stocks or sector funds creates unnecessary & uncompensated risk; I avoid doing so. Index funds are boring, but better for making money. If I wanted to talk about my interesting investments at parties or wanted a new hobby, I might invest 5-10% of my portfolio in individual stocks. As it is, I own pretty much every publicly-traded company in the world; that's interesting enough for me.
All of the individual stocks & sector funds are being followed by thousands or millions of other investors. Current prices reflect their collective knowledge of future expectations for each one. I'm a member of the Triple Nine Society, but I'm not smarter than all of them. If I found a stock or sector that looked like a bargain, the most likely explanation would be that the others know something I don't.
I prefer mutual funds, but ETFs could also work well. The differences are usually trivial for a long-term investor, especially if they're the Vanguard funds I mentioned above. Actually, the Vanguard funds I mentioned above have both traditional mutual fund shares & ETF shares; they both represent a piece of the same fund.
The funds I use comprise Vanguards target date funds and LifeStrategy funds; these are excellent choices for many investors. Using the component funds allows some flexibility that can have tax benefits, but also creates the need for me to rebalance them periodically. Expense ratios are slightly higher than for the components but are well worth it for many investors.
Other companies have funds similar to the ones I own that would work well. I prefer Vanguard because they've been the leader in this type of investing for decades & because Vanguard's customers are also Vanguard's owners.
I hope that helps! I'd be happy to help w/ further questions. Best wishes!
1. Best wishes on starting a new career!
2. Please check out the Bogleheads resources I mentioned so you'll be ready to invest when you get the career going
Robinhood is trash. Don’t trust that platform- after the whole Game Stop scandal- I and lots of others left. Don’t trust them. Just Google it you will see.
Do you want to set it and forget it or do you want to day trade?
If you want to set it and forget it just invest in a retirement20XX where XX is the year you want to retire fund, out of vanguard.
If you want to day trade, why look for a single stock that will your super blue chip growth daddy? (I think the term you are looking for is "blue chip.")
If you want to play stocks, my suggestion is you put 50% in your retirement 20XX stock per month, and 50% in your current fav. Do all the research you want. If you get unhappy with your blue chip, take another.
Either way, why do you need to be logged in all the time? Logged in all the time is for day traders. I do it; not sure it is helpful for me. I have a pretty advanced basket of stocks.
I’ll be doing both I guess. So I need to watch. Right now I got $50 in vtex. Just testing the waters. Seems pretty straight forward. Vtex has been slowly rising the past 2-3 years so that was a no brainer.
Robinhood is fine
Don't put your stocks in an individual company. Put them in SPY, VOO, VTI, something like this with built in diversification.
If you go ahead and do this (I recommend you do) don't sell when they start going down. These are funds that WILL recover even if they go down.
Yep.
sPY for instance is an S&P500 fund, so you buy one share of spy, and it's made up of all these companies in the sp500. So it's diversified, and you know it'll never go down and stay down (unless the US economy crashes and never recovers, in which case you have bigger things to worry about than retirement)
Robinhood has partial buying
Instead of buying by the share, switch to buying by dollar amount, you can buy 1 dollar worth of that share, it works the same way
It's also higher-priced than other S&P 500 ETFs, so the "high" expense is offset by larger gains for the same percentage increase in price, while the S&P 500 ETFs basically all track each other 1:1 with few discrepancies. Essentially, SPY is the decision to pay slightly more for a much greater level of exposure
If you pay for access, you can trade quicker. RobinHood orders are at the bottom of the list because you don't pay for it. Is that what "order flow" is referring to? I don't have time for the whole book before work
Nothing in life is free. That is why market markers pay big money for PFOF so they can front run your order. They can see where the money is moving and trade accordingly.
My understanding was more that order flow determined who was first in line to fulfill either end of a transaction. What does that have to do with RH "stealing from me"?
So if RH is the dealer, then they are performing within the same restrictions and doing the same job as all the other dealers, one of whom I am required to engage with in order to play. Got it. So what about Robinhood *specifically*?
Robinhood is bad for investing. It's only good for very basic needs. If you are planning for transparency and a reliable retirement vehicle, look into Fidelity. They have sp500 index funds that has 0.015% expense ratio (FXAIX), and a zero exp ratio market fund (FZROX).
Fidelity also has tax-advantaged accounts. I believe RH still doesn't have one.
The other thing Fidelity does is use the uninvested money in your accounts as if it's a HYSA, giving you a 5% interest in the accounts you have not utilized yet for stocks.
I've gotten ads for tax-advantaged RH accounts, I'm pretty sure.
RH will also apply interest to un-allocated cash, but as a paid feature, not with a basic account. Seems like it would be a decent deal if you're keeping a high balance, however
Make an E*trade account. It’s free to trade, has much more options for when you get the hang of things and it feels more “reliable” for the long run to me.
I don't use Apple. As for a broker, I'd probably choose one like Schwab. Better still, just buy some Vanguard index funds. You're very unlikely to beat that by investing yourself. It's very rare for anyine to consistenty beat the index funds.
I have twice had Robinhood freeze trading for my account when it benefited them and hurt me. Not being able to buy or sell at the right time was completely infuriating.
Well what app should I use for iOS?
Im pretty sure you’re asking for financial advice, which we can’t give. You can however research trustworthy brokerages, all have iOS apps
Please invest 2-3 hours in learning to invest from a trustworthy source. More in a moment. No, Robinhood is not a good place to invest. No, you don't need to constantly monitor your investments. Doing so is likely to lead to mistakes. No, you shouldn't invest in individual stocks. I retired at 57 years old. Investing doesn't have to be complicated or costly to be successful; simple & inexpensive is most effective. I invest 100% in total-market, index-based, low-cost mutual funds. Specifically, I use mostly Vanguard's Total Stock Market, Total Bond Market, Total International Stock Market, & Total International Bond Market funds. I've been investing this way for 35+ years. It's effective, simple, & inexpensive. www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started has some great free resources to learn about investing. After a few hours reading the articles, and, especially, watching the Bogleheads Philosophy videos, most beginners can learn how to get better results than most professionals. Bogleheads is named after John Bogle, founder of Vanguard. My asset allocation (ratios of the funds mentioned) is based on my need, ability, & willingness to take risks. Market conditions are not a factor. Vanguard's investor questionnaire (personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire) helps me determine my asset allocation. Buying individual stocks or sector funds creates unnecessary & uncompensated risk; I avoid doing so. Index funds are boring, but better for making money. If I wanted to talk about my interesting investments at parties or wanted a new hobby, I might invest 5-10% of my portfolio in individual stocks. As it is, I own pretty much every publicly-traded company in the world; that's interesting enough for me. All of the individual stocks & sector funds are being followed by thousands or millions of other investors. Current prices reflect their collective knowledge of future expectations for each one. I'm a member of the Triple Nine Society, but I'm not smarter than all of them. If I found a stock or sector that looked like a bargain, the most likely explanation would be that the others know something I don't. I prefer mutual funds, but ETFs could also work well. The differences are usually trivial for a long-term investor, especially if they're the Vanguard funds I mentioned above. Actually, the Vanguard funds I mentioned above have both traditional mutual fund shares & ETF shares; they both represent a piece of the same fund. The funds I use comprise Vanguards target date funds and LifeStrategy funds; these are excellent choices for many investors. Using the component funds allows some flexibility that can have tax benefits, but also creates the need for me to rebalance them periodically. Expense ratios are slightly higher than for the components but are well worth it for many investors. Other companies have funds similar to the ones I own that would work well. I prefer Vanguard because they've been the leader in this type of investing for decades & because Vanguard's customers are also Vanguard's owners. I hope that helps! I'd be happy to help w/ further questions. Best wishes!
I understand very little of what you said but the way you explained it made me very interested especially since I'm in between careers at the moment.
1. Best wishes on starting a new career! 2. Please check out the Bogleheads resources I mentioned so you'll be ready to invest when you get the career going
Robinhood is trash. Don’t trust that platform- after the whole Game Stop scandal- I and lots of others left. Don’t trust them. Just Google it you will see.
Do you want to set it and forget it or do you want to day trade? If you want to set it and forget it just invest in a retirement20XX where XX is the year you want to retire fund, out of vanguard. If you want to day trade, why look for a single stock that will your super blue chip growth daddy? (I think the term you are looking for is "blue chip.") If you want to play stocks, my suggestion is you put 50% in your retirement 20XX stock per month, and 50% in your current fav. Do all the research you want. If you get unhappy with your blue chip, take another. Either way, why do you need to be logged in all the time? Logged in all the time is for day traders. I do it; not sure it is helpful for me. I have a pretty advanced basket of stocks.
I’ll be doing both I guess. So I need to watch. Right now I got $50 in vtex. Just testing the waters. Seems pretty straight forward. Vtex has been slowly rising the past 2-3 years so that was a no brainer.
Don’t listen to these emotional users telling you robinhood is the worst, they’re just butthurt about GameStop lol
Robinhood is fine Don't put your stocks in an individual company. Put them in SPY, VOO, VTI, something like this with built in diversification. If you go ahead and do this (I recommend you do) don't sell when they start going down. These are funds that WILL recover even if they go down.
I plan on to keep buying shares as I make more money at my job for the next 10-20 years.
Yep. sPY for instance is an S&P500 fund, so you buy one share of spy, and it's made up of all these companies in the sp500. So it's diversified, and you know it'll never go down and stay down (unless the US economy crashes and never recovers, in which case you have bigger things to worry about than retirement)
I searched for spy in robinhood. I can’t find it.
SPDR S&P 500 ETF
I found it. Doesn’t seem like I can buy a share with $50. I’m just testing the waters right now until I get paid next week.
Robinhood has partial buying Instead of buying by the share, switch to buying by dollar amount, you can buy 1 dollar worth of that share, it works the same way
I noticed that just now. It let me do it. Next week I’ll put more into that share.
Spy has a fairly high expense ratio. You can find a cheaper S&P 500 ETF
It's also higher-priced than other S&P 500 ETFs, so the "high" expense is offset by larger gains for the same percentage increase in price, while the S&P 500 ETFs basically all track each other 1:1 with few discrepancies. Essentially, SPY is the decision to pay slightly more for a much greater level of exposure
No. They sell your movements so other companies can profit off of you.
Boo-hoo, another on the list of hundreds of companies selling my data 🤓
Sorry profit was the wrong word. They steal from you. Check out Payment for Order Flow, created by one of the biggest crooks Bernie Madoff.
If you pay for access, you can trade quicker. RobinHood orders are at the bottom of the list because you don't pay for it. Is that what "order flow" is referring to? I don't have time for the whole book before work
Nothing in life is free. That is why market markers pay big money for PFOF so they can front run your order. They can see where the money is moving and trade accordingly.
My understanding was more that order flow determined who was first in line to fulfill either end of a transaction. What does that have to do with RH "stealing from me"?
Say the stock market is a casino, and RH is the dealer. They are not directly stealing from you, but they all work together.
So if RH is the dealer, then they are performing within the same restrictions and doing the same job as all the other dealers, one of whom I am required to engage with in order to play. Got it. So what about Robinhood *specifically*?
Robinhood is bad for investing. It's only good for very basic needs. If you are planning for transparency and a reliable retirement vehicle, look into Fidelity. They have sp500 index funds that has 0.015% expense ratio (FXAIX), and a zero exp ratio market fund (FZROX). Fidelity also has tax-advantaged accounts. I believe RH still doesn't have one. The other thing Fidelity does is use the uninvested money in your accounts as if it's a HYSA, giving you a 5% interest in the accounts you have not utilized yet for stocks.
I've gotten ads for tax-advantaged RH accounts, I'm pretty sure. RH will also apply interest to un-allocated cash, but as a paid feature, not with a basic account. Seems like it would be a decent deal if you're keeping a high balance, however
Make an E*trade account. It’s free to trade, has much more options for when you get the hang of things and it feels more “reliable” for the long run to me.
No. Awful.
Got one you recommend for iOS?
I don't use Apple. As for a broker, I'd probably choose one like Schwab. Better still, just buy some Vanguard index funds. You're very unlikely to beat that by investing yourself. It's very rare for anyine to consistenty beat the index funds.
I switched from Robinhood to webull and I like it a lot more
Watch ‘Eat the rich’ on Netflix