[treis]

All the press release says is:

>Robinhood failed to seek to obtain the best reasonably available terms when executing customers’

That could mean pretty much anything.

[Kranar]

I disagree that your sentence fragment is all the press release says. I believe the press release says a lot more, such as Robinhood making substantial amounts of money from pay for order flow and Robinhood executing orders at prices that are not only worse than what is available on the market, but also worse than competing brokers, and this in spite of the fact that Robinhood advertises this to the contrary.

These facts taken together can not be used to "mean pretty much anything". These facts, along with the additional fact that the SEC is charging Robinhood of engaging in illegal activity, strongly suggest illegal activity involving pay for order flow that resulted in worse price execution to the customer.

If you think that means "pretty much anything" then we can simply agree to disagree on this matter.

[pgwhalen]

> Robinhood executing orders at prices that are not only worse than what is available on the market, but also worse than competing brokers

This sentence doesn't make much sense given how PFOF works. It would make sense if it were flipped around and said "not only worse than competing brokers, but worse than what is available on the market" because brokers typically provide retail traders better than what is available on the market (assuming: public exchanges = market).

I agree with GP that the press release suggests that Robinhood was not giving worse prices than NBBO, but was instead giving prices better than NBBO (like every broker), but intentionally not _as good_ prices as other brokers, in exchange for greater PFOF.

I am not fundamentally against PFOF, but the "honesty" required on the part of the broker in situations like this has always troubled me, and it's interesting to see it rear its head. I think an ideal market structure might keep PFOF, but in a more public way, such that payments were more transparent/competitive in real time, and not something arbitrarily negotiated between brokers and wholesalers.