- How's it going today, guys? I hope you're having a fantastic day. So in this video here we're going to be doing an in-depth review of the Robinhood app, and if you guys are curious about different investing platforms out there and you're doing your research, I've linked up down in the description below all the different review videos I have done so far on this channel. So I do encourage you to shop around, look at the different options out there, and really consider the features and benefits of each investing platform and then figuring out which one really best suits your needs. Now Robinhood captures a lot of attention because it is completely free. $0 commission, $0 minimum account balance, so you could literally open up an account, fund it with $10 and start investing in stocks. So there's a lot of appeal to this but what I really want to make sure you guys understand is that it is a very limited platform and that's kind of what we're gonna get into here is the pros and the cons of this platform, why I like this platform, and also why I'm not such a fan of this platform at the same time.Now like I do with all of my reviews, I do have a pinned comment down below with a timestamp for the different sections so if you guys are looking to skip ahead in this review, that is a pinned comment down below where you can jump ahead to a separate section. First of all let's talk about what Robinhood actually is. Robinhood is a free trading app out there that has really ballooned in popularity.
It allows you to invest in stocks, ETFs, as well as cryptocurrencies and options. Now the cryptocurrency piece is still limited to certain states in the United States, so if you are looking to invest in cryptocurrency through Robinhood, you're going to want to make sure it is currently available in your state. Beyond that, Robinhood is a very basic investment platform. It is a 100% online platform, meaning there are no physical storefront locations. So I'm sure you guys have seen the Charles Schwab or Fidelity locations around where you can go to a branch office or you can call someone up on the phone. With Robinhood it is completely electronic and online and so this right here might be a con for some people, the fact that you can't call someone up on the phone or you can't stop into a branch location to talk to someone but really, the difference here is the fact that you're not paying anything. With the traditional online discount brokers you're paying a fee for commission and they have a minimum account balance that is more or less what Robinhood eliminated but by eliminating that fee structure they are not able to offer the personal attention that you might get through your other brokerage account where you can call someone on the phone or stop into a branch location.
So what can you invest in using the Robinhood app? First of all you can invest in publicly traded stocks or ETFs on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq so right off the bat that tells you that you cannot invest in penny stocks, you can't invest in foreign stocks unless they trade through ADRs, and you can't invest in stocks on the over-the-counter exchanges. You can also invest in cryptocurrency through the Robinhood app if it's available in your state and currently this includes Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin. Robinhood also now allows you to buy and sell options free of charge. So what this means is that there are no mutual funds available on Robinhood and there are no penny stocks or over-the-counter stocks. Moving on now, what are the fees associated with a Robinhood account, and what are the requirements? Well the only requirements is that you do have to be a US investor, 18 and up, but beyond that, there are no fees associated with Robinhood.
It is completely free, no minimum account balance, and no commission cost for trading. You might be asking yourself, well how does Robinhood make money? What they do is they offer a feature called Robinhood Gold, where you are offered margin, you can buy stocks on margin, and you can also have after hours or extended hours trading and you also have the availability to have instant settlement with your funds rather than waiting for funds settlement when you are selling your position.
Typically you would have to wait for those funds to settle to withdraw them or to reinvest them but Robinhood can offer that instant settlement with their Gold Package. So that is how Robinhood is actually making money. Okay, so what are the pros of this platform? There are pretty much two of them that I see. First of all it's 100% free, which really lowers the barriers to entry to get started with investing. Traditionally if you wanted to open an investing account, it might be a $500 or $1000 minimum balance but with Robinhood, it is $0, you can get started with pretty much nothing. The second pro for them is the fact that it has a very simple interface pretty much anybody can jump on there, get started, and understand what it is they are doing but that in and of itself is also a con because the platform is extremely basic. And for any investor out there that's really doing a lot of research you're gonna be extremely limited by this platform.
So that right there is the first con I see for Robinhood. That platform is extremely basic and I have used Robinhood before. I still have some investments with Robinhood but what I would find is I was doing all of my investment research on other platforms or other websites and I was only using Robinhood to buy and sell my shares and I really, would rather have the ability to do that all in one place where I'm on an app that allows me to do research and learn about investments and then do my transactions as well. Another con for some is the fact that Robinhood does not offer mutual funds so if you are looking to invest in mutual funds you are not going to be able to do that through Robinhood. Now a big con is the fact that they do not offer retirement accounts and this right here is a huge problem in my opinion because you cannot open any type of retirement accounts.
You can't do the self-directed Roth IRA or a traditional IRA through Robinhood and I think a lot of people don't understand the difference here between investing through a retirement account where you can be tax sheltered or investing through a traditional brokerage account where you're paying taxes and you're paying at the maximum rate in some cases. So really educate yourself on investing through retirement accounts if you are a long-term investor especially as a young person and understand the advantage of investing and being able to do so through a retirement account.
Another con is that Robinhood does not offer a DRIP or dividend reinvestment plan. A lot of other brokerage accounts out there allow you to reinvest your dividends automatically and Robinhood does not do this. Another con is also the fact that you can only purchase whole shares of stock on Amazon, so there are no fractional or partial shares available. And one platform that does offer both of these things, they offer a DRIP and they also offer fractional shares is M1 Finance, this is also a completely free platform and I'm gonna link up the review to this as well.
If you guys are on the fence between Robinhood and maybe something else, I would highly recommend taking a look at M1 Finance because in my opinion that is a superior platform and M1 Finance is my favorite investing platform out there for beginners who are not looking to pay for commissions when they are trading. So that review is linked up down in the description below. Another con is that there are no pre-built portfolios with Robinhood, so you can't really go on there and start investing in a portfolio that was built by somebody else. They're putting all of that power in your hands to decide what you're going to be investing in and you also really can't build a portfolio or automate that process at all. You can't automate deposits into your account, you can't automate investments. Really, it's as basic as it gets here with this Robinhood platform, and that is the advantages that some of these other platforms offer out there, it's the fact that you can automate your contributions or automate your investments, or automatically reinvest those dividends that are paid out by the stocks you're investing in.
And then the fourth con is that Robinhood only offers the very basic order types. If you are somebody who's looking for the more complex order types, you're gonna wanna look somewhere else but for the most part these order types are all you would need as a beginner. So moving on who is Robinhood for and who is it not for? Robinhood is a good platform for beginners who are looking for a very basic investment platform but like I said, I would recommend doing your due diligence looking around at a couple of different platforms, particularly M1 finance.
Who is Robinhood not for? It is really not good for the research-oriented investor. If you're looking for candlestick charts, if you're looking for more information about companies, if you're looking to do fundamental analysis, you really can't do any of that here with the Robinhood app. You're going to have to do that on different platforms and you're probably going to be disappointed with that very basic platform. But understand that is what Robinhood was built for, it was meant to be the most basic and simple investing platform out there.
So I'm really not saying it's a bad platform, it was just built to be very basic for beginners and if you're a little bit more advanced as far as investing goes, then you're probably not going to be happy with Robinhood. But anyways guys, that's gonna wrap up this video, that is my opinion of Robinhood app. Let me know what you think down in the comment section below. But thank you so much for watching this video and I will see you in the next one. If you are interested in learning more about investing in the stock market, I've created a free course just for you. The link is in the description below. Here are a few other videos you might enjoy as well. (groovy music) .
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