[drcode]

I'm sure falseprophet's response would be something along the lines of "index funds bla bla bla professional investors bla bla bla efficient market hypothesis bla bla bla" which isn't necessarily wrong (I agree with this line of thinking myself, mostly) The problem is when people complain about new opportunities for average folk and use an argument that amounts to "we need to protect dumb people from themselves" which is too simplistic an answer for complicated problems, in my view.

Often, people end up being smarter than you think, when given the opportunity (not that I'm endorsing Robinhood... I'd be very cautious about using them, based on first impressions)

[TheOtherHobbes]

If we stopped protecting dumb banks from themselves and everyone else, we wouldn't need to worry so much about protecting dumb people from themselves.

As for efficient markets - I'm still trying to understand how social institutions that melt down every decade or so and are a consistent focus of criminal proceedings can be considered 'efficient.'

[apostate]

We are probably in the same camp; I just wasn't sure if GP was comparing casinos with 'stock trading' or the equity asset class in general, which, if one subscribes to the 'boring' methods of index fund investing, are hard to beat over a 5+ year time window.

I would hope ETFs are available on this platform, since they trade like stocks.