Start Investing in the U.S. Stock Market: Robinhood Will do the Trick
- Pascal
- Apr 28, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: May 5, 2021
Key Takeaways
Robinhood is an easy to use commission-free investing app which is very popular among millennials.
On Robinhood, you can invest in U.S. stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETF) such as SPY and VOO, and several cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin.
Robinhood is great for first-time investors - you can get familiar with how to place a buy order for some shares of SPY or VOO. If you submit a market buy order, you will immediately buy shares at the current market price. If you submit a limit buy order, you define the maximum price you are willing to pay per share - this limit price should be below the current market price. A limit buy order will be triggered and executed if (and only if) the market value falls below the limit price you set.
While Robinhood is trendy and great for first-time investors, it has many limitations. For example, it only offers regular brokerage accounts (where, each year, you pay taxes on capital gains and dividends), while it does not offer any tax-advantaged accounts such as traditional or Roth individual retirement accounts (IRA).
Baby Steps
Sign up for a Robinhood brokerage account. Both you and I will earn a free stock if you sign up using this referral link.
Transfer some of your savings to Robinhood - even $100 will do.
Buy some shares or a fractional share of SPY or VOO and you will instantly co-own the 500 most powerful companies in the US. Hold this shares for at least 20 years and see how they grow in value over time. There will certainly be some drops along the way. In this case, stay cool, do not sell, and remember from FI 101 that the market always goes up over extended periods of time.
Sell the free stock you earned while signing-up on Robinhood and buy some more fractional SPY or VOO shares with the proceeds from this sale. As you might remember from FI 101, it is best to hold a diversified S&P 500 ETF rather than individual stocks.
The Whole Story
Like or comment on this post if you are interested in further details. Let me know your questions and I will answer them in detail.
Comments