I just glanced at my Robinhood app and realized that I joined on January 8, 2016, which made yesterday my third anniversary of using the app. That seems like as good an opportunity as ever to take stock and share my overall impressions so far. The company seems perfectly scrupulous Robinhood attracted a lot of damaging, well-deserved publicity last month for the botched … [Read more...] about Robinhood 3-year anniversary review: I love it, but it’s terrible
investing
Everyone should have access to the federal Thrift Savings Plan, but not for you reason you think
Shortly before his humiliation and expulsion from public life, Florida Senator Marco Rubio resurrected the idea of allowing some non-government employees to invest in the Thrift Savings Plan, which is the federal equivalent of private-sector 401(k) and non-profit 403(b) plans. The proposal got some sympathetic attention from lazy personal finance journalists, and some critical … [Read more...] about Everyone should have access to the federal Thrift Savings Plan, but not for you reason you think
What was behind Robinhood’s very bad week?
Since the product was announced on Thursday I've been following with interest the drama surrounding Robinhood's "Checking and Savings" product, which has since been put on hold and rebranded as a "Cash Management" account. It's an interesting story about the brokerage and banking industries, and I think it's possible at this point to piece together what Robinhood was thinking, … [Read more...] about What was behind Robinhood’s very bad week?
The SEC offers free financial planning tools. Are they any good?
This is a funny thing I was unaware of until I saw someone mention it on Twitter the other day: the SEC hosts a website offering free financial planning tools. I was surprised, since I think of the SEC as having a "hands-off" approach to investing: they don't want people to commit too much fraud or anything, but they're mostly indifferent to whether you invest well or poorly … [Read more...] about The SEC offers free financial planning tools. Are they any good?
Vanguard just made lower-cost Admiral funds available to (almost) everyone
While not as complicated as the offerings of some mutual fund companies, Vanguard has long sold several different share classes to the public: "Investor" shares, "Admiral" shares, and ETF shares. While all three share classes hold the same underlying assets, they can have quite different expense ratios, with Investor shares the most expensive, and lower-cost Admiral and ETF … [Read more...] about Vanguard just made lower-cost Admiral funds available to (almost) everyone