What We’ve Seen

Retail investors in the U.S. have never had it better in terms of their ability to access the markets and invest at very low cost. U.S. capital markets are the deepest, most liquid in the world. The exceptional quality of our markets is driven in part by high levels of retail investor participation.

What We’re Doing

Robinhood championed commission-free, no account minimum investing in the U.S., and the industry has followed our lead. According to a Robinhood-commissioned study, this saved investors over $17 billion in 2020 and 2021. It also found that Robinhood customers have benefited from more than $8 billion in price improvement compared to the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) during that time period. Our model was made possible by an established and regulated market practice known as payment for order flow (PFOF), which has helped bring tens of millions of new investors into the stock market by driving the cost of investing and trading down to historically low levels.

In 2022, the SEC proposed four rules that would fundamentally change the way your stock trades are executed and the prices you receive when you go to buy and sell stocks. We fear that these changes will in many instances make it more difficult, confusing, and expensive for you to invest and trade. New rules should be proposed carefully and only after regulators collect data, engage with market participants, and conduct a meaningful analysis of the potential problems and solutions, including the real costs and benefits for investors – which in our view the SEC did not do before proposing these rules.

Robinhood will continue to fight for what we believe is right for investors and the long-term health of the markets.We urge the SEC to take a thoughtful and incremental approach to market structure reform, and will be an active participant in this ongoing debate on behalf of millions of Americans that have begun to participate in the markets over the past decade.

2580270; 2645928; 3209358