[jonp888]

Why wouldn't they?

Gamestop meme traders deliberately set out to smash the system and they succeeded to a small extent. Robin Hood, in the face of the partners they rely on refusing to allow further acquisitions, did the best they could by still allowing selling.

For any normal trader what happened on one specific day to one specific stock which was deliberately manipulated on a massive scale to try and cause a trading halt is utterly irrelevant.

[alephnan]

> Why wouldn't they?

Because there are better brokerages out there.

> in the face of the partners they rely

You mean their actual customers. There are brokerages where the incentives are not perversed like this.

> did the best they could by still allowing selling

Assuming they acted in good faith to do their "best", their CEO was still incompetent failing to anticipate to liquidity issues

> what happened on one specific day to one specific stock

They halted buying on more than GME.

[halamadrid]

You do know that besides Robinhood many of the other brokers also halted trading the same tickers? Robinhood was the face of the issue for sure, but a lot of others did the exact same thing.

[preisschild]

And a lot of others didn't do the same thing. Whats your point?

[nairboon]

Most of those 'other brokers' that halted trading, were similar to Robinhood, as in not really a proper brokerage. No serious bank ever halted trading, why would they?

[colechristensen]

Etrade also did and it’s the retail trading arm of Morgan Stanley which is the sixth biggest bank in the country…

I don’t know what your qualifications for a proper brokerage could be.

[silisili]

Fidelity has been down at least a dozen times this year, for hours at a time during trading hours. It's not exactly a halt, but effectively same boat.

[ffgjgf1]

Because the Wallstreet bet types don’t really use them?

[alephnan]

Yes, I do.

I said there are better brokerages, and that point still stands. Vanguard, for example, didn't.

I never said that all other brokerages are better than Robinhood. In fact, there are worst.

Just because other brokerages did the "exact same thing" doesn't excuse them or Robinhood.

[halamadrid]

I know its hard to believe, but the entire customer base (23.3M) of Robinhood is a testament to how good their product is in spite of the misgivings of the brokerage during the "GME". If it makes it feel better, their MAU is down 16% year-over-year to 10.3 million.

I am also a user and I love it - and while I don't trade crypto, but they offer the lowest commission in crypto. And my uninvested cash gets a decent interest (5%), and my trades execute reasonably well. It maybe not for a professional trader, but my own experience has been fantastic for what it offers.

Also incredibly thankful that there is no trading fees across many of the brokers now, which I believe was forced by Robinhood. I know of the PFOF controversy, and regardless I hold this view.

I also know I can't change your view, but hope you have a great weekend ahead!

[nairboon]

>Robin Hood, in the face of the partners they rely on refusing to allow further acquisitions, did the best they could by still allowing selling.

You mean Robin Hood manipulated the markets? By only allowing sell orders you manipulated the price and market. In some cases they even automatically sold positions without knowledge of the retail traders.

They should have gone bankrupt, instead they robbed many retail traders.

[colechristensen]

That’s the wallstreetbets angry meme explanation but not what happened.

What actually happened is brokerages are required to hold capital reserves to cover options held by customers. You can spend a few dollars and your brokerage is required to have sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands in the bank to cover your option.

During peak memestock options activity went to a crazy unprecedented level, Robinhood had to raise billions of dollars in a day or two, like nearly four billion in a few days. And it wasn’t enough so they had to stop trading or put limits on buying options for GameStop and a few others. Etrade and interactive brokers at least also did.

They didn’t go bankrupt or get stomped by regulators or congress because they were behaving within the law and reasonably in an unprecedented situation.

My understanding comes from articles like this one https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/03/why-investors-were-willi...

[mejutoco]

Weren't they also in direct communication with the (I think non-existing) hedge fund that would benefit from them allowing only to sell?

[colechristensen]

Really hard to comment on such a vague insinuation.

[mejutoco]

I saw gamestop the movie recently and it was stated as fact towards the end, IIRC. I was just vaguely remembering it, but I believe it is proved.

[RandomLensman]

Did they sell positions where they had no right to sell?

If they, hypothetically, had gone bankrupt, how would that have helped retail traders in that moment?

[Dah00n]

>Gamestop meme traders deliberately set out to smash the system

That is a very strange and biased POV. They did the exact same thing as people have done for years and years, the only difference being this was joined by many people not in the industry.

[jonp888]

My understanding was that the whole point of the Gamestop trading was to force financial companies into a position where they were facing insolvency.

I guess it was a hyperbolic to describe it as smashing the system, but the key thing is that the primary purpose was to cause disruption, rather than purely to make a profit. That they became angry when that disruption occurred is a bit baffling to me.