[Thorncorona]

RH's entire schtick is to be the amateur's investment broker. Their barrier to entry for margin and options is practically 0. When the only thing you need to do in order to get access to level 3 options is check a couple boxes, you're practically encouraging this type of activity. RH is breaking a ton of rules atm and there is a reason why most brokers are high touch for margin/options and unfortunately the Kearns' family is first hand evidence of this.

Most other brokers WILL NOT allow this. When I applied for options Schwab had a broker call me and make sure I knew about all the risks involved for the level I applied for.

RH was also down a couple times in March, which lost me a good amount of money. A week is a VERY long time if you're playing short-term options. There's also other issues where they were holding customer shares in margin when they had cash to cover, and when they've allowed customers to leverage 5k -> 1M of positions (a huge nono).

The conclusion here is that RH is a toy broker following the mantra of move fast and breaks things. Good if you're casually investing, but for options and serious investing with real amounts of cash it's worth getting a broker that is serious at providing reliable service.

[tidepod12]

>The conclusion here is that RH is a toy broker following the mantra of move fast and breaks things.

I personally see them at the Juul of the finance world. They're intentionally targeting young inexperienced people and telling them "just download this app and you'll be rich! all your friends are doing it, don't miss out!"

[nightski]

Not sure how many brokers you have applied to lately but -

TDA, Fidelity, Webull, Interactive Brokers, Tasty works, ETrade, and more all make options just as accessible as RH.

[subsaharancoder]

When I applied to enable Options trading on my Fidelity account, I had to wait 3 days plus they sent me a booklet which looked like it was printed in the 80s about the risks of options trading, they also pointed me to a section on their site with tutorials about options trading once they had enabled my account. By the time they were done I was rethinking my plan to trade options :-)

[pc86]

How long ago was this?

I opened both Fidelity and E*Trade brokerage accounts in the last 3 weeks and it took minutes to submit options applications for both, at max levels. ET was approved instantly and Fidelity the next day. Not a single piece of paper from either one.

[curryst]

Depending on how much money you are putting in your account, you might be getting a different reaction. It also might depend on the product; I think Fidelity has at least 2 different types of trading accounts (I think one is paid). The paid one may not have as many guardrails.