The people in r/wallstreetbets usually understand that they're making stupid bets. OTOH, r/Robinhood is full of completely irresponsible traders -- trading in illiquid securities, dumping tons of money in penny stocks, triggering PDT restrictions and getting stuck with unwanted positions, not understanding bid/ask/mark (usually blaming RH or the "market maker" boogeyman for changing the price on them), buying OTM weekly options (known informally on wallstreetbets as "FD"s...), complaining about tons of "glitches" that are actually just them losing money through ignorance, and (one that has always confused me) blaming all losses on some mysterious "market maker" boogeyman who kills all of their trades.
If it was 1996, these people would be speculating on Beanie Baby portfolios hedged with Charizard cards.
To be fair, RH does sometimes have problems. They blew up the other morning and screwed over a number of people by closing their accounts for the day while they tried to figure out how their system credited them with options sales at 10-100x actual value. RH has definitely got bugs, and if I were serious about playing the market I'd go with IB or TW, or just about anyone else.
That number of people is quite large. Between FB groups, reddit and Twitter comments it definitely exceeds the hundreds.
I was locked out for 29 hours with expiring strangles that would have had significant upside if closed at the right time, lost everything put into them by the time I could get back in.
Never received communication about the lock out or being allowed back in.
They have no phone support and during that whole period not a single email was responded to.
To imagine this company as a bank is one of the most ridiculous concepts ive heard of.
Eh, they're actually going for both millenials and younger. A lot of their advertising is in YouTube ads and YouTube podcasts, which is definitely aimed at a younger audience than millenials.
It's one of my favorite subreddits for that reason. Though there are definitely some people that do seem to have a very legitimate gambling problem and I feel bad for them and their families.
There's one guy on there who lost nearly a million bucks. And another one who I believe has lost more than that, and hasn't posted a single thing in three months, since he finally made it all the way to bankrupt. Makes you think a little, I wonder if he's still alive.
I did learn that options are super exciting and a great way to lose every last penny. I got lucky and came out ever so slightly ahead on my run through WSB, but I got out of it and now I'm back to normal stocks even with my play money.
If it was 1996, these people would be speculating on Beanie Baby portfolios hedged with Charizard cards.