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Ask HN: What Are the Alternatives to Robinhood?

by vira28·5y ago·29 comments·view on hn ↗
I have used Vanguard, Etrade and M1 finance (https://www.m1finance.com/). I heard good things about Interactive Brokers. What are the other ones. Would love to see some research on this.

What about Ally or Alpaca? Can one trade using those banks (api) ?

29 comments
There is a list on wsb of which still allow you to trade. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6wrig/you_...
Interactive Brokers is a monthly payment. Only if you're VERY active in trading (many trades every month) should you consider IB. But yes, they're very premium service, but I don't think they're for typical investors (who might only trade once or twice a month).

Your standard brokerage firms all work: E-Trade, TD Ameritrace, Schwab, Fidelity etc. etc. Stocks are easy, they all got them covered. It really doesn't matter who you go with for stocks.

Fidelity is a bit better with bond offerings. TD Ameritrade is known for their nicer interface (Think or Swim), especially for options trading. E-Trade IIRC has some good international offerings but still has a pay-per-trade business model.

It depends on what you want. But... stocks are real easy, everyone does stocks just fine. Its more about asking what your secondary investments are going to be: Forex, Options, Bonds, and the like

Interactive Brokers also offers a "Lite" version that is pointed at a similar market to RobinHood (no fees, no comissions). Also worth noting that they run their own clearing house.

https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45196

https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500

> Interactive Brokers also offers a "Lite" version that is pointed at a similar market to RobinHood (no fees, no comissions).

Who charges fees or commissions on stock trading anymore?

Most brokers who don’t go down when the market opens.
Pretty much all the household brokerages stopped charging fees about a year ago.
Yeah, it certainly seems that way. Even Vanguard Brokerage Services, of all places, is offering $0 stock trades. They were never really a discount broker like Schwab, Fidelity or TD Ameritrade. (Schwab offering $0 trades, on the other hand, was very predictable)
Don't use Interactive Brokers. They halted GME today. Interactive Brokers chairman on CNBC, asked why they halted trading: "Honestly, to protect ourselves": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RH4XKP55f

E-trade and TD Ameritrade halted GME today as well.

Same bullshit as Robinhood.

Why is this downvoted? This true and I would not trust IB. My friend had been trying convince me to come to IB but now he is moving to Fidelity.
TD Ameritrade was the only brokerage firm that agreed to open an account for me, living in Algeria, when I was a student about a decade ago. They even mailed in all the required paperwork at the time, got on the phone and explained the details and answered my questions.

Every other firm I tried to open an account with refused for policy reasons. It was shortly after that that PayPal blocked my account without giving any reason, even after exchanging with their support team. They insisted it was a definitive, irrevocable, decision with no recourse.

IB put in the same limits as RH
The Monthly Minimum Fee is $10.00 a month for Interactive Brokers.

I can cancel my netflix and then it's about even.

Just saw a post on M1 using Apex and not allowed to trade certain stocks. https://twitter.com/M1_Finance/status/1354837064072753152
Darn, if Apex is blocking at the clearing house level, then the platform I would have recommended is also not going to work.

Edit: just checked, and yeah, there's a message that Apex has blocked buying, plus an investor warning about significant losses. Weirdly my test trade (I'm not involved in this game, just spectating) was accepted though.

Right. Certainly one needs to have some level of crypto on their assets?
Fidelity, I daytraded GME today without any issues. I also have accounts with Tastyworks and Think or Swim. Tastyworks sent email that their clearinghouse had blocked certain stocks but ToS didn't sent any email. So assuming ToS is also safe to use for high risk trading.
I think it is better to prefer brokers that have their own clearing house

https://investorjunkie.com/stock-brokers/broker-clearing-fir...

Update: Just got an email from Alpaca that even they are also stopping trading on some stocks.
Looks like they just lifted it, with conditions*.
I wanted to use IB but the api was hideous, ended up going with Alpaca.
thinkorswim or tastytrade. Though both did the same or similar as Robinhood with stopping opening positions. I just got an email from tastytrade saying that restriction was lifted.
I was surprised to hear about Robinhood blocking trades on some companies. Can they do that?
They can do whatever they want if no one stops them. The question is simply who is the sovereign and who makes and enforces the rules. It should be clear that financial oligarchy has a prominent position doing just that in our society in the US at least.
Index funds.
crypto!
An alternative is invest some portion of money in crypto assets, and Defi which can be a sort of decentralized alternative to established financial players. Obviously this isn't the stock market but this incident should raise scrutiny of the merits of being involved in that rigged casino in general.