To Robinhood: Welcome to the good fight

Last night, Robinhood announced some new, but familiar looking features¹.

We believe there are trillions of dollars trapped in clunky experiences with firms taking far too many dollars out of the pockets of the people they claim to be helping. We applaud anyone who works to solve this problem. Kudos to Robinhood for demonstrating their continued excellence in design and delivering good value.

They also started to talk about a concept we’ve been using for some time, a digital private bank experience. We believe the future of finance is the same tools and rates currently available to the ultra-wealthy but in a digital and low-cost platform. The best of personal finance will be hyper-personalized, intelligent, and broadly available.

As part of this experience, we believe everything should be oriented towards helping clients build and manage wealth. This is where Robinhood speaks out of both sides of their mouth. Very few would advocate for active trading, short-term options, or sports gambling as prudent wealth-building tools. But this is what Robinhood actively promotes. When Robinhood makes silly money from Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT), and Popcat (POPCAT) coins, is Robinhood really stealing from the rich to give to the poor or vice versa?

They moved a bit more towards proper wealth management with their roboadvisor. While M1 doesn’t offer advice, we do offer robust automation and customization at a low cost. They’re offering an account to pay 4.00% APY on your cash – something M1 already offers (and you can earn extra with this link). They announced an upcoming AI assistant that will be released this fall. M1… well, stay tuned…

Robinhood is a phenomenal company that offers an incredibly designed platform. However, like a health food company selling cigarettes, they prioritize items that are detrimental to their customer’s financial well-being. With these new announcements, they confirmed something we’ve always believed: We believe Robinhood is the best place to trade. And we believe M1 is the best place to invest.

¹As they say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

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