July 3, 2021
1. I'd like to thank the SEC for taking the action against such business practice and fining Robinhood. I appreciate your efforts to protect investor interests.
2. I'd like to thank Robinhood for making it easier for lots of people to trade and invest in equity market.
3. Regarding the \"payment for order flow\", I felt very disappointed at Robinhood when I first found out about this practice. The fact that the customer(account holder) believed they were getting great deal by having not to pay the trade commissions, which really adds up(hence the great deterrent against frequent trading), while auctioning the order flow to the highest bidder appears unethical. I can't empathize with the principal trading firms that were charged the high fees because they were willing to pay for the order flow. It seemed very lucrative for both parties(broker-dealer), especially if the account holders were frequent traders and in this case the account holders were enabled to trade frequently due to the factors like (a)lack of trading commissions, (b) ease of use of the app, and most importantly(c) account holder's own desire to beat the market.
4. I hope Robinhood will do better job to protect its customer base because more than just being broker platform, it is an internet company that has data on users(account holders) behaviors. It becomes its duty to handle such information with care and use it to better aid those who use their services.