Robinhood goes a step further than TradeStation by eliminating per-contract fees on option trades. The firm has even eliminated exercise and assignment fees and all commissions on crypto trades.
It is a true zero-commission broker.
And it goes without saying that Robinhood has no account fees of any kind.
But Robinhood hasn’t cut too many corners to get to zero fees. It has a browser platform that delivers some useful features, including:
- Full-screen charting: With four technical studies and two graph styles. Drawing tools, comparisons, and company events are unfortunately missing.
- Order ticket with five order types: They are market, limit, stop loss, stop limit, and trailing stop (in both $ and % terms).
- Options trading: Just calls and puts on the computer platform, although you can create your own multi-leg order. Robinhood has its own form of option chains, which are different from traditional chains. Instead of calls on one side and puts on the other, you select calls or puts with discrete buttons. Then you choose buy or sell.
- Watchlists: An infinite number can be created. With Robinhood’s software, it’s possible to add a name to each list and even a unique icon.
- Popular lists: These are collections of stocks and ETFs divided by theme. Examples include upcoming earnings, healthcare supplies, and tech. Results can be sorted by price and market cap.
- News articles: Robinhood delivers recent stories from Reuters, CNBC, MarketWatch, and Bloomberg.
We also like Robinhood’s fractional-share trading service, which permits whole dollars to be traded instead of whole shares. Only a handful of other broker-dealers today offer this really great service.