Robinhood offers new investors a platform designed to lower market barriers, courtesy of its barebones interface and low fees.
But here’s the problem with Robinhood Login. It makes trading so easy that it practically turns it into a game. This tends to drive active trading, or buying and selling stocks rapidly to turn a quick profit.
Due to the amount of risk and the vast potential of loss involved with active trading, most experts recommend that almost all investors opt for passive investing or buying and holding low-cost index funds to grow wealth.
Robinhood also lacks many of the educational resources offered by the best online brokers for beginners.
Robinhood is an online broker that, since its early days, has focused on making it easy for investors with little or no experience to start investing, and to do so with very little money.
You can trade a variety of assets, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, options, cryptocurrency and American Depository Receipts, on Robinhood. ADRs are bank-issued certificates representing shares in a foreign company. They trade on U.S. stock exchanges even if the foreign stock itself does not. With Robinhood, you can even trade fractional shares of stocks and ETFs.
However, you cannot trade stocks listed on foreign exchanges, preferred stocks, over the counter stocks, mutual funds, closed end funds, foreign currencies or bonds on Robinhood. Nor can you short stocks.
To use Robinhood, you must have a valid social security number, a legal U.S. residential address and be a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. or hold a U.S. visa. You must also meet the minimum age requirement.
Basic services are commission free. Some additional services are available by paying for a premium subscription called Robinhood Gold.
Options used to be an exotic type of security that only seasoned professionals traded or knew how to trade. Technology has made it easier, and Robinhood is among the platforms that offer access.
Like other platforms, Robinhood restricts options trading access to knowledgeable investors who meet certain standards, which indicate they understand the risks they are undertaking and can afford to play in this potentially costly arena.
Once you’ve got an options account set up and funded, it only takes four steps to make a trade:
If you have more than one type of account with Robinhood—such as a taxable brokerage account and an IRA, as well as an options trading account—you’ll want to choose your options account before placing the trade.
Robinhood users can also swipe on existing or pending orders to buy, open, sell or close the order. Swiping right will buy or open the order. Swiping left will sell or close the order.
After selling stock or options in your Robinhood Login brokerage or retirement account, the transaction usually needs to settle before you can withdraw the proceeds and move them to your bank account.
The settlement period for equities is the trade date plus two trading days. That’s sometimes called a regular-way settlement. On the third day, you’ll be allowed to withdraw those proceeds.
For options trades, the settlement period is the trade date plus one trading day.
Robinhood was the first major brokerage platform to eliminate commissions on stock and options trading, helping to revolutionize the industry. Today, commission-free trading of stocks and ETFs has become the standard industrywide.
To access a lower interest margin account, customers must pay at least $6.99 monthly—or $75 annually—for Robinhood Gold. Without Robinhood Gold, users with a Robinhood margin account will pay 12.00% interest. With Robinhood Gold, that rate can be reduced to 8.00%.
Gold subscribers get a 3% match on eligible contributions to a Robinhood IRA account. Eligibility requirements include keeping eligible contributions in the IRA for at least five years and remaining a Gold member for at least one year after receiving the first 3% match.
Robinhood Gold also includes $1,000 in margin credit and research materials. In addition, Robinhood Gold provides customers with the ability to make larger deposits.
For any margin above $1,000, there is an 8.00% annual interest rate with Robinhood Gold, calculated daily and charged to the customer’s account at the end of each monthly billing cycle.
ServiceCost with Gold subscriptionCost without Gold subscription
Trade commission
0.00%
0.00%
Margin account interest rate
8.00%
12.00%
Gold subscription, 30-day
$6.99
N.A.
Gold subscription, 1 year
$75.00
N.A.
Fees apply to some other Robinhood services as well. Their costs are the same with or without a Gold subscription.
FeaturesFees
Returned check, IRA rollover
$25
Outgoing wire transfer
$25
Bank transfer (instant), from Robinhood account
Up to 1.75%
Paper statements (monthly)
$2
Paper trade confirmations
$2
For a Robinhood debit card, there is no fee for opening or maintaining an account, or for inactivity or replacing a card. However, out-of-network ATM providers may charge use fees.
The Robinhood trading platform is minimalistic and intuitively designed, making it very easy to buy and sell stocks, ETFs and cryptocurrencies. The platform does suffer from limited order types and relatively few other bells and whistles.
Robinhood is not a comprehensive brokerage, which means its range of offerings is somewhat limited.
OfferingAvailable?
U.S. Stocks
Yes
ETFs
Yes
Mutual Funds
No
Bonds
No
Options
Yes
Advisory Services
No
Cryptocurrency
Yes
Fractional Shares
Yes
Spending Account
Yes
Users can automatically reinvest their dividends with Robinhood by toggling on the feature on investments that offer it.
Despite the limited range of tradable assets, Robinhood does stand out for its cryptocurrency offerings, although its range of available coins is more limited than the best crypto exchanges.