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Robinhood is very easy to use and its educational content is a joy to read. But, in today’s competitive market for your investing dollars, there are several more compelling options among brokerages. There are some things Robinhood does particularly well; if you’re just starting out your investing journey, read on to see whether Robinhood is your ideal companion.

Investment options

Robinhood offers stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency trading. But mutual funds and bonds are not supported at Robinhood, nor is futures trading.

Cryptocurrency: Robinhood is strong in crypto. It allows users to trade 19 cryptocurrencies with no commissions, fees or markups and markdowns. Instead, it makes money from selling order flow. Robinhood also allows crypto transfers, an unusual feature among the brokers reviewed in our 2023 Annual Review.

Mobile trading apps

Robinhood's mobile app is fast, simple, and, on those terms, one of the best. For occasional stock trading, Robinhood has the functionality required to be productive: watchlists, stock quotes with charts, analyst ratings, recent news and Bloomberg videos along with basic trade entry.

Ease of use: Robinhood initially led the way in the field in terms of ease of use when it came to its mobile app. Now that others have caught up in this realm while offering more features, Robinhood’s appeal has dimmed.

Watchlists: Robinhood's focus on simplicity leads to several notable drawbacks. Other than automatically syncing across devices, the watchlist functionality is slim. In comparison, TradeStation and TD Ameritrade offer hundreds of options for their watchlists. Admittedly, few investors ever need more than a dozen options, but it’s nice to know they’re available.

Charting: When pulling a stock quote, charts cannot be modified beyond six default date ranges and two chart types. There are only six technical indicators and landscape mode is not supported for horizontal viewing.

Trading tools: Knowledgeable traders will find Robinhood a mighty small sandbox to play in. Trading tools are minimal at best and are outpaced by virtually all of the competition.