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The Robinhood Reckoning
For better or for worse, the no-fee investment app has now become synonymous with Main Street trading
Welcome to Buy/Sell/Hold, Marker’s weekly newsletter that’s 100% business intelligence and 0% investment advice. Each week, our writers Steve LeVine and Rob Walker will make sense of the most important developments in business and why they matter.
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The Robinhood Reckoning
The Buy/Sell/Hold Analysis
“It is not lost upon us that our company and our service have become synonymous with retail investing in America,” the founders of the no-fee stock-trading app Robinhood declared last Friday. It sounded like a boast. But in fact, it was quite the opposite: The context was an official response to the apparent suicide of a 20-year-old reportedly distraught because he believed that some risky options trades he placed through the app had left him $730,000 in the red. While the specifics are unclear, the event vaulted Robinhood into the spotlight so dramatically, the unicorn startup now…
