I can't even see the stock anymore on my TD Ameritrade account. Earlier this morning I could.

I'm trading in and out of GME, BB, AMC, NOK, and NAKD just fine. But I had plenty of cash settled and ready, so not even using 30% of my margin trading power.

I feel a little dirty just printing off money like this.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Some Trading platforms are not allowing trades in GME and others. fReE mArKeT

I think it you had settled cash, you can buy and sell freely. The brokerage can limit the credit they extend to you, so they can limit trades that use up margin.

Even something like buying a call uses margin. You pay cash for the premium, but the strike price is guaranteed by your brokerage using your margin limits.

If you are watching all the meme stocks, you can see the money rotating between AMC, BB, and GME

https://news.yahoo.com/robinho...ODE5wI5HI30viMjo_zLI

Robinhood restricts trading in GameStop after retail brouhaha shakes markets

Update: Robinhood has made public note of the changes, stating that "in light of recent volatility" it is "restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD and $NOK." The company added that it has "raised margin requirements for certain securities."

Robinhood, the popular consumer trading application, has restricted its users from making some popular investments and wagers, public reports indicate. Social media is awash with notes from individual Robinhood users indicating that some popular securities are now untradable, and the company reportedly sent out a note yesterday saying that it is "implementing certain restrictions for for GME [GameStop] and AMC [the theater chain] options trading."

TechCrunch has multiple emails in to the company asking for clarification regarding what trades, and securities are banned in aggregate, and the reasoning behind the move, but we've yet to hear back at time of publication. User commentary thus far concerning Robinhood's choice has been swift, and negative, however.

Robinhood's decision comes after zero-cost trading platforms found themselves at the center of one of the public market's more bizarre sagas, in which a horde of retail investors bid shares of heavily-shorted securities higher in an attempt to break the trades of professional investors; precisely who is making the bets, and what portion of the new wagers are from individual investors and not larger pools of capital following the trade is not clear.

Yesterday, after noting that some traditional online brokers had restricted some user access to certain securities, citing their volatility, TechCrunch asked Robinhood and a number of its peers if they were taking similar precautions.

One of the group added some protection, but most cited their focus on long-term shareholding over day trading; a fair position but one at odds with the fact that most free-trading apps generate revenue from consumer trade volume. And options and other more exotic trades generate more revenue for neo-brokers than trades executed in well-known stocks.

Robinhood's latest move, then, will ding its revenues as it is no longer allowing for trading in some very popular securities and other market-based wagers.

This is not the first time that neo-brokers have come up against tension between their business model and user access to exotic investments. After a Robinhood user committed suicide after trading options and not understanding one of their trades, a tragedy, Robinhood worked to make options trading harder to get into. That was definitely the right call, but likely not great for its revenue in the short-term, we imagine, given how lucrative those trades have historically proven for the company.

Options volume is setting records. Trading volume is at historical highs. And at the time of writing, shares of GameStop are set to rally at the open yet again today. Let's see what happens.

I have to wonder if this will sink Robinhood.

People are pissed…

Robinhood bars users from buying GameStop stock, infuriating its users

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
This is the first article on the topic that actually made sense to me.

Thought I would share.

https://www.vice.com/en/articl...-with-gamestop-stock

That's a really good article.

The only thing it's missing is Citron Research's livestream of it's short sell report.

Citron Research announced last Tuesday that it would livestream the 5 reasons GameStop was going back to $20 on the following day. The announcement caused a panic sell off.

The next day, inauguration day, the livestream was delayed to the following day. Share prices stayed suppressed like a coiled spring, shares being traded from "paper handed bitches" worried about what might be said to the true believing "diamond hands".

The next day, Thursday, Citron did the livestream. It sucked. It was riddled with technology problems. Andrew Left, the guy running the show at Citron, was clearly just a random Boomer on an iPad in his living room, who couldn't even run a proper livestream. r/WallStreetBets constantly makes fun of Boomers and their 10% annual gains.

It was like chum in shark invested (pun intended) waters. It was the tipping point, and that's when we started to see the ridiculous pop into triple digit share prices.

I have been thinking about dabbling a little but I'm a bit confused, and by dabbling I mean maybe like a couple hundred dollars to get the experience and maybe make some extra walking around money. If I were to open an account with TD Ameritrade, would I just add cash to my account and buy stock and trade stock with that? Are there fees? Other than potentially losing money, what are the downsides?

A family member has a Robinhood account, would you recommend they close their account with them and move to another service?

quote:

Originally posted by kx90:
I have been thinking about dabbling a little but I'm a bit confused, and by dabbling I mean maybe like a couple hundred dollars to get the experience and maybe make some extra walking around money. If I were to open an account with TD Ameritrade, would I just add cash to my account and buy stock and trade stock with that? Are there fees? Other than potentially losing money, what are the downsides?

A family member has a Robinhood account, would you recommend they close their account with them and move to another service?

Put money into TD Ameritrade. Download the ThinkorSwim app on your phone or your computer. ThinkorSwim is TD Ameritrade's trading platform. It gives much better charting and research. Most trades are fee free.

You cannot trade in and out of stocks same day (day trading) with a small account. Each time you sell a stock, the money takes 2 days to settle back into your account. If you buy stock using unsettled funds, you must hold the stock until the funds settle.

Robinhood is simple. Like, stupid simple. That's the only thing going for it. TD Ameritrade has better trading hours, and is less likely to crash on you during busy trading days like today.

So it's OK for certain people to "short"...got it.

It's a club, you're not in it and you'll never be in it.

People short stocks all the time. It's one of the strategies to make money in a down market.

The issue is that hedge funds push the market around, a million shares at a time, putting intentional downward pressure on companies.

Yeah, the 2020s are shaping up like the 1920s in one respect: everybody played the stock market in the 1920s, and we know how that ended, don't we?

But, hey, don't worry. The fix is in, but you're in on the fix. Right? Right?

Right

Robinhood is gonna get so fucked for blocking trades so blatantly.

quote:

Originally posted by kx90:
I have been thinking about dabbling a little but I'm a bit confused, and by dabbling I mean maybe like a couple hundred dollars to get the experience and maybe make some extra walking around money. If I were to open an account with TD Ameritrade, would I just add cash to my account and buy stock and trade stock with that? Are there fees? Other than potentially losing money, what are the downsides?

I have a couple of TD Ameritrade accounts. You have the right idea about the mechanics of it, not necessarily the wisdom of getting involved at this time. I cannot speak to the latter, I am a "buy and hold/lose over the long term" investor, and not in a position to give advice to anyone. AMTD, as with most brokerages, have suspended trading fees for "regular" stock purchases for a couple of years now, you will be charged fees (interest) on the use of margin, and futures/options trades.

AMTD (now owned by Schwab) has a trading platform known as "thinkorswim" available for download (I don't know if you have to have an account with money in it to download, but I think so), check their website. This gives a ton of information on on-going trades, price movements, etc. in real time.

quote:

A family member has a Robinhood account, would you recommend they close their account with them and move to another service?

If you go to your usual grocery store and want to buy bread, and they tell you "yes, we do have bread, but we are not selling loaves to you today" are you going to skip lunch, or try another grocery store?

Poof

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by kx90:
I have been thinking about dabbling a little but I'm a bit confused, and by dabbling I mean maybe like a couple hundred dollars to get the experience and maybe make some extra walking around money. If I were to open an account with TD Ameritrade, would I just add cash to my account and buy stock and trade stock with that? Are there fees? Other than potentially losing money, what are the downsides?

A family member has a Robinhood account, would you recommend they close their account with them and move to another service?

Put money into TD Ameritrade. Download the ThinkorSwim app on your phone or your computer. ThinkorSwim is TD Ameritrade's trading platform. It gives much better charting and research. Most trades are fee free.

You cannot trade in and out of stocks same day (day trading) with a small account. Each time you sell a stock, the money takes 2 days to settle back into your account. If you buy stock using unsettled funds, you must hold the stock until the funds settle.

Robinhood is simple. Like, stupid simple. That's the only thing going for it. TD Ameritrade has better trading hours, and is less likely to crash on you during busy trading days like today.

Which companies settle the funds faster? 20 years ago eTrade was instant. How’s Fidelity?

TDAmeritrade allows "Paper Trading" on the ThinkorSwim platform. You should definitely use that to learn.

Regarding Robinhood, the issue is that price action is happening now. You can't move money over and spin up a new account fast enough.

Also, if you are seller of bread and you baked a thousand loaves to sell at the farmers market today because there was a buying frenzy yesterday, what would happen to the value of your bread if your farmers market said patrons cannot buy bread today?

TD Ameritrade charges a small fee for a trade, be it $200 or $200,000: same fee. Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, charges a percentage of the trade value.

And just when I was ready to take the plunge...

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:


Which companies settle the funds faster? 20 years ago eTrade was instant. How’s Fidelity?

Fund settlement is regulated. Trade date plus 2 days (T+2).

If you have a margin account, you can continue trading while funds settle.

There's actually two rules at play. The not trading with unsettled funds is called a Good Faith Violation.

The other rule concerning small accounts is the Pattern Day Trading rule. You can only make so many day trades (buy and sells of the same stock in one day) in a rolling 5 day period before you get blocked from making further trades.

The usual solution is to put $25k into your account. That gets you past the Pattern Day Trading rule. Then, convert your account into a margin account, and that gets you around the fund settlement problem and Good Faith Violations.