Why I switched from Robinhood to Charles Schwab for my investments?

Why I switched from Robinhood to Charles Schwab for my investments.

My History with Investments

In May 6, 2019, I purchased my first stock ever on the Robinhood App. My first stock was Snapchat (SNAP) at $11.66. Why did I pick Snapchat? It was a company I was familiar with, I used to use it on a regular basis and it was relatively inexpensive.

My next purchases were Aurora Cannabis, CannTrust, Legacy Reserves, Histogenics, Jaguar, Capitala and Disney. My mix of stocks included a couple pot stocks, a few penny stocks and then I learned about dividened stocks so I wised up and started buying those.

Robinhood App

The Robinhood App and website was a great place to purchase stocks for me. They have access to Crypto currencies and ETFs. You can create a watch list of stocks you are interested in maybe purchasing one day. At one point while using the Robinhood App, I did find that the list stopped populating stock amounts. I thought this was weird. My purchased stocks were populating so I was cool with it.

One day, while on the Robinhood App, I noticed the information Robinhood was reporting for Dividends wasn’t accurate. I found loads of discrepancies with Robinhood’s information vs what NASDAQ was reporting. Again, I was willing to live with this. After all, I could always check the internet for the right information.

Charles Schwab

On October 7, 2019, Charles Schwab started offering 0% commission trading. I mean so did Robinhood so I wouldn’t be saving money necessarily. However, this was a huge move for Charles Schwab. The 0% commission trading was only for trading apps back in the day. Now, Schwab wants to jump on that band wagon too. Other larger brokerages like eTrade jumped on that zero commission trading bang wagon. This was it, this is what sold me on switching to Charles Schwab.

Not only would I continue to recieve 0% commissions but now, I’ll have more accurate stock information at my finger tips in the same place my stocks are located. Schwab also provides analytics for all stocks including ranking, buy or hold metrics and so many other features I don’t know how to use yet. No more not populating stock watchlist and no more inaccurate stock information and still get 0% commision trades… sign me up!

Why Charles Schwab? Now, I had experience with Charles Schwab before. For the last several years, the brokerage my employer holds my 401k in is Charles Schwab. I am familiar with their website. Even though, their site is extremely intimidating. There are so many drop downs, trade options, products, services, etc. It’s overwhelming AF.

Bonus: I didn’t know this at the time but Schwab reinvests your dividends back into the stocks. Which was a feature Robinhood didn’t have at the time (I believe Robinhood now has this feature) Every stock I can reinvest my dividends back into, I do it. It’s so exciting watching my stocks grow even though I might not have purchased new stocks in a while.

My thought process on switching

I realized I will be playing the stock game for the rest of my life, if I can. I enjoy the process very much. I love researching stocks to purchase. I love looking into dividend stocks. I love the purchasing process and how easy it is. I love watching my stocks grow. I love less the watching my stocks drop (even though that doesn’t happen too often- except for now when I’m very much in the red as many stock holders are because of the Coronavirus but stocks will bounce up again soon). So if I want to play the stock market for the long game, I want a reliable platform I plan to put my hard earned money into. And that reliable platform is Charles Schwab for me at this moment.

How do I know I made the right move to Charles Schwab?

On Monday, March 2, 2020, Robinhood shut down. The app and the website were not accessible by users. Not just any Monday, this Monday was one of the largest market drops in a long time. However, Robinhood users were left in the dark with not being able to buy in the dips or sell if they wanted.

Not to rub it in anyone’s face, I was able to buy stocks using Charles Schwab and Acorns on that Monday. I don’t think I would have been happy if I was a Robinhood user. That’s not to say Acorns and Charles Schwab are perfect. Far from it. No one entity is perfect.

Side Note: As of today, March 10, 2020, Robinhood has shut down 3 times since last Monday.

Conclusion

Where you store your money and your stocks and anything you think of as important needs to be a reliable, secure and safe place. Do your research on banks, stock brokerages or anywhere you store your money. Read reviews. Speak to their employees. Call their customer service line to see how reliable those are. You earn your money. Try to keep it safe.

Questions of the blog

Where do you trade stocks? Have you used Robinhood or Charles Schwab? Were you affected by Robinhood being shut down for several days recently? Are you thinking of switching brokerages? Also, what stocks are you looking to purchase due to the massive dips?