 Robinhood, a stock trading app. If you go ahead and look online, a lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about Robinhood. It would seem like it's one of the worst apps, and it has all these negatives to it. But in reality, it's the first stock trading app I ever used. And after trying multiple different kinds, it's still my favorite stock trading app. Hey, what's up guys? It's Josh here. I have been trading stocks and crypto for a few years now. I kind of wanted to do a video showcasing my crypto portfolio and my stock portfolio, although it's super down right now because stocks are super down. But I've tried almost every different kind of stock trading app. And Robinhood was the first one that I used. And I got to say it's still my favorite stock trading app. I don't know why it gets all the hate. It's just so easy to use and there's no fees for right now. And I love it. Real quick, before I go into the pros and the cons, I do want to say I'll put it down below. But there is a referral link. So if you do click on my affiliate link and you end up getting signed up for Robinhood, once it's all gone through, you will get a free stock and I will get a free stock, which is pretty nice. So you don't have to do that. But just by signing up, you literally will get free money. It will probably be only a few dollar stock, but it's free and there's no hidden fees or any BS for Robinhood. That's what I like. So if you don't already have Robinhood and you want a free stock, the link is down below and we'll both get one. All right guys, let's jump into the pros that I have with Robinhood. And the main pro is that it has legit no fees like zero none. Now I mainly trade crypto on the other apps, but almost every other app I've used, there's all sorts of fees. Crypto.com is like a percentage of the purchase they'll take in fees and then Coinbase, they also take some weird percentage. But every other stock trading app I've ever used, they always charge at least a little bit for trades and it's so nice and Robinhood having none. So for example, if you go to crypto.com, every time you buy something, they charge you a 2.99% fee on whatever you just bought. So you're essentially paying like a 3% fee on everything you buy. And then when you sell, they also take a 3% fee. So that's like 6% right there. So in order for you to make money, it has to go up over 6% where as in Robinhood, if it goes up 3% and you pull out, that's what she said, you get that 3%. And they also have something called limit buy and limit sell, which is very common. And I'm pretty sure all stock apps have this, but sometimes if you go on Robinhood, it'll be one price and you hit buy, it'll charge you a little bit more than the price that they show you. But if you put a limit buy and limit sell, it will only buy at a specific price. So like if you look at the stock and it's like $43 and you buy it and then Robinhood charges you like $43.50 or something. It's because Robinhood's trying to make the trade and that's the only available trade. It's a little bit higher than what the stock is at now. But if you're like, hey, I don't want this for any more than $43, you go and put a limit buy on it. It will only buy at $43. So there's a way to make sure that you pay exactly what you think you're going to pay every time with no fees. And there also is a limit sell option. So if you buy it at 35 and you want to sell at 50, even if it spikes at 50 for a few minutes, you have a limit sell and it'll sell like that. So limit buys, limit sells are amazing. They're on all stock apps, but because this is free, it's just so much more nice to avoid those fees. And if you wanted the day trade, you get more of a percentage of your stock back. I just love it. They also have multiple other ways to earn money. So they have something called stock lending, which is like you go and you buy your stocks and you put them in this lending program and randomly they'll borrow those stocks or like, I don't know what they do. Give them to somebody else temporarily. And when they use your stocks, they give you 1% of the total value of them. So you're essentially getting money for free. And if you wanted to sell, you could sell at any time. It's a great addition to any stock trading app because you have all the freedom to buy and sell whenever you want. And you have a chance of earning 1% just because you own the stock, which is crazy. I'm pretty sure if you just have money in the app and you haven't bought stocks yet, I think it's like 1.5% they give you back, which isn't the most, but it's more than you would make in the bank. So essentially just moving your money into Robinhood and not buying any stocks, you'll get a bigger percentage just putting it in Robinhood, which is crazy. And also if you go to Robinhood Gold, which is like a paid service, I think they give you like 4% cashback if you're on Robinhood Gold. So if you did have enough money, you could probably pay for that gold membership and probably earn more because you're getting 4% back that way, which I really like. Also, there was something called a Roth IRA and I just recently got into them, but it's essentially a portfolio that is somehow untaxed. I haven't really looked into it. Maybe you have to take it out as a retirement thing or you have to wait to a certain time or you can only withdraw it once. I have no idea, but a Roth IRA is kind of like the smart way to invest because if you have a bunch of gains in normal stocks and you pull them out, you will have to pay taxes on the gains that you made, but you won't have to do that in a Roth IRA. And for a long time, Robinhood didn't have Roth IRA and I was fine with it because there's no fees. I'm okay paying taxes on any big money that I earn. Like I'm not going to pay a lot of taxes unless I make banks. So I was kind of fine with it, but now that they have this Roth IRA, it just sweetens the deal, makes it even better. This is another feature that's on a lot of stock apps, but I love that they have it here and that is dividend reinvestment. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with stocks, but certain stocks have something called a dividend. So just by owning the stock, they end up giving you money every quarter, every month, every year, whatever cycle it's on. So you can choose to have the dividends that they give you be immediately reinvested back into the stock. So if you're somebody who's like, I just want this to build and I don't even want to look at it, you could literally keep buying a certain stock and you're going to keep getting dividends for that stock and keep reinvesting. So on top of the stock being able to go up, you're just getting free stock because you own it. And then on top of that, there's also the stock lending thing as well. So it's just like so many percentages in one here. Alright guys, if I were to jump into the cons that I had with Robinhood, the main con that I have, and this isn't really a crypto dominant trading platform, like it's mainly about stocks. There are some cryptos on here, but it's not crypto dominant. But if you go to Coinbase, if you go to crypto.com and a lot of the other ones, they have options called crypto staking. So you essentially buy crypto, you vault it or like send it away for a one month, two months, three months, whatever it is. And the whole time you're sending it away, you're getting a really nice percentage back. I think on Coinbase, all you have to do is buy it once and you get a percentage back if it's a staking coin. So if you go to these other crypto platforms, they have crypto staking, which essentially gives you free crypto the more that you buy crypto. So it's very similar to dividends, but Robinhood does not have the dividend style staking for crypto. They only have it for the stocks. But at the same time, every time you buy crypto on Coinbase or crypto.com, they always charge you a fee. So you can earn more through the staking, but at the same time, every purchase you make, they're taking much more from you than Robinhood would. Again, there's no fees for Robinhood and you could put a limit by limit sell. So you know exactly what you're paying. You don't pay a penny over. I don't expect this to last forever, but right now it's perfect. So another con with it is it doesn't have overly in depth market data. Now they do have Robinhood Gold. So maybe on Robinhood Gold, they have better market data, but one of my coworkers was more into stocks than I was when I first got in and he would use Weeble or Tastyworks and he would get his information about stocks on those apps and then come back to Robinhood to buy them because Robinhood didn't have the most information, but you could buy without fees. So it doesn't have the most in depth stock information, but it has tons of information more than I would need right now. So it's not as in depth as other sites, maybe it is on the gold, but at least at one point, it didn't have the most in depth market data. Then the last con is it was actually a little annoying to sign up. Like I would probably expect it to take maybe 20, 30 minutes to sign up. It was definitely the longest and hardest to set up, but at the same time, I just love the platform. I like that all the purchases are free. And when you actually sign up, you're getting a stock literally for free. So you could literally sign up, get this stock, cash it out back into your bank account, even though the stock's probably going to be like two, three bucks, you get a free one. I mean, it's like, why not try it out? I also wanted to do a video on all the crypto that I own and all the stocks that I own. Let me know if you guys want to see that video down below. I have no idea if this video is going to be successful, not successful, could be a bomb. You guys could be super into it, but if you want more, I will do a video on all the crypto that I hold and all the stocks that I hold. Although the stocks are super low for me and I'm getting absolutely annihilated right now, I can still show you. Anyways guys, have you traded stocks in your life? You trade crypto at all? I'd be very interested to see. If you do, what is your favorite trading platform? I'd be very interested to see down below. We're on the road of 50,000 subscribers and I couldn't do without any regrets. I hope you guys are the best. Having a great day out here. Hopefully, having a great day at home. See you all in the next video. Peace.