Yes it’s the broker .
The clearing house requires the broker to put up a certain amount of money for each trade . Typically that number is around 10% but when a stock becomes volatile like GME that 10% goes way up . It can get as high as 80%.
The reason for what Robin Hood did what it did was not to protect hedge funds from losing their shorts it was simply liquidity issues with the clearing houses on these stocks .
It makes them look bad but they are getting a bad rap over this .
Unless of course they were taking orders and not matching them, essentially going synthetically short, okay..tinfoil hat is off
....Tenev is obviously a very smart guy, entrepreneur , risk- taker. Fuckin' kudos, think he's net worth is up to 1billion now . Just a brilliant business idea- start a shop to help the little guy. We are here for the little guy,lol. It worked . They think everything is free , "lets trade at Robinhood its free!,..... Robinhood allows for more options for our 401k!" (LOL, actually read a person say that).
of course Robinhood is NOT a non-profit organization. They are making money hand over fist. The MM's they choose are paying them bigtime. They dotn care if their customers get the best order fill, their market orders are routed to the MM's they choose.
During covid the amount of new traders/'investors' have dramatically risen, i had to call one of the brokers i use the other day -TWO hour wait on the fuckin phone. Never like this before, fuckin crazy. ....the market is being treated like its a casino,
options volume is off the charts ...fun times .It's 2021 and our school system deosnt have personal finance as mandatory in the curriculum
copy and paste:
Payment for order flow is rather controversial, especially as Robinhood has marketed itself as an “anti-Wall Street” stockbroker. Consumer advocates and regulators believe it creates a conflict of interest, as the stockbroker is looking to route orders to the market maker which pays the most.
Robinhood has tried to alleviate concerns by adding controls to orders and assuring users they always seek the market maker with the best execution quality. But, in December 2019, the company was fined $1.25 million by a brokerage industry regulatory for failing to ensure customers received the best prices.