SOPA Images / Getty
- Members of the r/Robinhood subreddit forum are roasting the brokerage after Fidelity debuted its fractional trading program on Wednesday.
- Robinhood announced its fractional trading program in mid-December, but the service has a waitlist of more than 1.2 million users. Fidelity opened its service to all clients the day of its announcement.
- “Robinhood, if you’re looking at this: this is what happens if you delay and waitlist everything,” one forum member wrote. “It’s not gonna generate hype, just cause us to move to other platforms.”
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Some of Robinhood’s biggest fans are lambasting the discount brokerage online after legacy firm Fidelity was quicker to release fractional trading.
Members of the r/Robinhood subreddit decried the firm’s slow rollout of the buzzy new feature in a post on Wednesday. The company announced its fractional trading service on December 12, though the program is in “early access” with more than 1.2 million users on its waitlist, according to the Robinhood app.
Fidelity unveiled its fractional trading program on Wednesday, allowing clients to immediately trade slivers of shares without a waiting list. Members of the Robinhood subreddit warned the quick response from Fidelity could prompt a mass exodus from the younger brokerage.
“Never forget that it was Robinhood’s success that pushed Fidelity, Merril [sic], etc to implement no-fee trading and fractional shares,” Reddit user Flufflebuns commented in a post addressing Fidelity’s new service. “Unfortunately Robinhood’s watch has ended now that the big guys have implemented these excellent trading policies.”
“Robinhood, if you’re looking at this: this is what happens if you delay and waitlist everything. It’s not gonna generate hype, just cause us to move to other platforms,” another user wrote.
Robinhood noted that fractional trading “is rolling out to more customers” in a tweet at 11:59 a.m. ET Friday.
Robinhood rose to fame by undercutting major brokerages on costs typically associated with stock trading. The platform began by offering commission-free trading through a smartphone app starting in 2015, and later introduced cryptocurrency trading, options contracts, and high-yield savings accounts to its millions of users.
The company took on an early-mover reputation as older firms rushed to offer similar products, but with most brokers cutting trading fees in the last quarter of 2019, Robinhood faces new competition from the services it sought to replace.
“Robinhood is smaller and was supposed to be the disrupter [sic] since they’re so nimble,” forum member Synthecid3 wrote. “It’s clear to me that RH isn’t as hungry as one would expect. Honestly, why even stick around on an inferior platform.”
The discount broker faced similar online backlash in early November when members of the WallStreetBets subreddit exploited a glitch to leverage seemingly infinite amounts of cash. Posts detailing the glitch prompted a number of copycats to borrow massive amounts of capital, with one turning a $3,000 deposit into stake worth $1.7 million through the options-trading hack. Another Reddit user compiled a hall-of-fame list of traders using the glitch “to celebrate our new Infinite Money Cheat Code.”
“The only reason I stay with Robinhood is because of the glitches, lagging and general nonsense this company offers. It makes gambling investing more entertaining,” one Reddit user commented on Wednesday, likely referring to the November glitch.
Now read more markets coverage from Markets Insider and Business Insider:
Amazon blows past a $1 trillion valuation after topping analysts’ earnings expectations
SpaceX hopes to launch 1 million rockets a year with a business that could upend commercial aviation
