For me Robinhood is disqualified simply because they deem it necessary to have this page:
Robinhood Status
Last week I complained about technical issue with interactivebrokers.com - since then it has been working well and I am starting to explore its plethora of trading functionality.
the dashboard page isn’t the issue at robinhood. at least they had the foresight
to show customers a status page. to be down a whole trading day is inexcusable. especially after last weeks rout, and then to happen on a rebound like yesterday. what a joke. i know RH is mainly small fish, but where does one think the big fish started? anyone in their right mind should be out of there asap, after that debacle.
to be clear...every broker has technical issues. sometimes it’s the exchanges, sometimes it’s the broker infrastructure. it happens.
BUT, what happened yesterday (and they are still having email comms issues) at RH was inexcusable. i’ve never seen a case like that with any other broker.
i’ve been telling people to read the yearly barrons report on online brokers. it’s helpful. IB (the cheapest of any ‘paid’ brokerage account) fidelity, etc are usually the best.
they talk about etrade and schw for beginners...but does anyone really want to be at a broker for beginners? and then what...change brokers again once you become more experienced? that doesn’t make sense to me.
everyone is doing 0 comm now. your order flow will be sold to MMs, and you will get mugged on trades by *sugar* executions. but it’s “free”
ib splits into lite (0 comm) and pro (paid commission with best execution, not selling that flow to MMs). whereas others say they give you ‘smart’ routing, you pay commission, then they sell your order to MM anyway. (this is why they all went 0 comm, because they couldn’t get away with it anymore). anyway, they are still cheapest when selecting ‘pro’ package. my stock trades are usually $1.00 and even less in my IRA. my options trades range from $2 to $4 depending if they are index, equity, regular or weekly expirations, but can be more if you’re racking up contracts.
if you trade options, you want the best nbbo. the spreads are too wide to get ‘free’ trading.
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anyway, lkundin, what was your tech issue at IB?