Robinhood App Review – How It Works

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Robinhood has become widely known as the brokerage that democratized investing through commission-free trading.

They have one of the best mobile trading experiences on the market and the Robinhood app is a truly unmatched interface.

So today, we’re diving into the app specifically – what we like and what we don’t like.

You can find Wall Street Survivor’s comprehensive review of all things Robinhood here.

Let’s jump into our Robinhood app review!

What Is Robinhood?

Robinhood is an app that needs no introduction.

Founded in 2013, Robinhood raised $539 million in venture capital funding.

The discount broker burst onto the scene in 2015.

Currently, the company boasts over 10 million users.

That amount exceeds that of popular discount broker E*Trade.

What makes Robinhood so popular?

The company provides commission-free trading.

Just like Uber was a disruptor of the taxi industry, Robinhood is a disruptor of the brokerage industry.

The service proves to be one-of-a-kind by cutting out nearly all costs associated with investing.

Robinhood is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

This means that the brokerage is held to the highest standards in the investing world and your stocks and uninvested cash are insured.

Note: your securities are not insured against decreases in price; they’re insured against the brokerage going out of business and failing to return them to you.

Robinhood does not currently support the trading of mutual funds.

If you’re looking for mutual funds, you might want to go with a different platform.

The Robinhood App

You can access Robinhood via desktop or via the Robinhood App.

The mobile app provides access to all the tools you can find on the desktop dashboard, like the watchlist, news, and stock trading functions.

What We Like About the Robinhood App

User Interface

The Robinhood app’s UI is simply incredible.

The app is simple, sleek, and quick.

The animations are attractive and it’s an overall comfortable and enjoyable setting for investors who want their investing platform to look and feel great.

Robinhood customers can link their bank account to the app in seconds and start buying and selling stocks with no trading fees.

News

You have access to recent stock market news as well as the latest editions of Robinhood’s email newsletter, Robinhood Snacks.

These pieces of news come with the daily performance of the associated stock(s).

Crypto

Not every brokerage account offers cryptocurrency trading right now, and most of the ones that do have a minimum purchase requirement.

Robinhood lets you buy cryptos in small amounts, which is good news for investors working with smaller portfolios.

Robinhood also offers a cryptocurrency wallet that lets you send and receive crypto.

Watchlist

Robinhood lets you easily choose stocks and cryptocurrencies you want to keep track of and add them to your Watchlist.

This allows you to keep an eye on indices, benchmarks you’re trying to beat, and stocks you might want to buy into soon.

Popular Lists

When you use the “browse” feature in the Robinhood app, you will be greeted with a subsection called “Popular Lists”.

These lists, which are accompanied by matching images, allow you to quickly narrow down your search to find securities you may be interested in.

Examples of Popular Lists include Daily Movers, Upcoming Earnings, and Growth and Value ETFs.

Cards

On the “Investing” page, or home page, of your Robinhood app you’ll see little notifications that pop up beneath your portfolio summary.

These are “cards” and include information like new features, account updates, market updates, and news updates.

Cash

Users who want to quickly bring in money from their bank accounts to be used instantly for investing or manage their Cash Management account and debit card can go right to the “Cash” page on the app. 

Messages

The “Messages” page mainly contains updates on your current orders and makes it that much easier to stay up-to-date with your investing actions without having to exit out of the app and check your email.

Learn

You can choose between plenty of investing topics and see a short lesson about why that topic matters and how it impacts your portfolio.

Robinhood Gold

You can sign up for Robinhood Gold through the app, or access your existing Robinhood Gold benefits.

Robinhood Gold benefits include bigger instant deposits, access to professional research and market data, and a lower APR on margin trading.

What We Don’t Like About the Robinhood App

Outages

Robinhood has an unfortunate history of outages during times of high stock trading volume.

The first incident of note was a series of outages in March 2020, when investors were unable to trade for several hours at a time.

More recently, the trading app had outages in January of 2021 during a surge that led Robinhood, as well as other online brokers, to stop their users from trading stocks such as GME and AMC.

While these issues do not happen very often, even one outage can lead to big losses for retail investors.

Market Research

The amount of research tools available on the Robinhood app is rather small.

Investors who like to research their stocks heavily before buying in will find that Robinhood lacks the advanced statistics needed to make completely informed decisions.

Charting

Experienced investors will find the charting tools on the Robinhood app to be very simple.

While the look is simple and clean, the only features offered are line graphs and candlesticks with basic financial statistics.

If you are looking for a highly customizable charting and forecasting experience, other apps may suit you better.

Keep in mind that Robinhood also does not currently support mutual funds.

Final Thoughts

There’s no reason to wonder why Robinhood has risen to fame as the brokerage that democratized the world of investing.

And we would agree that the Robinhood app is just as sleek and user-friendly as the website.

If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for an account yet, you can do that here!