FinTech News
Robinhood Announces Introduction of Fractional Stock Trading
In the past few months, the investment app Robinhood has certainly seen its share of ups and down. Nevertheless the company has continued to not only push forward but also bring new features to its platform. On that note, the FinTech has just revealed that it will soon give users a new way to invest.
Today Robinhood announced that it would be adding fractional stock trading to its platform. As they explain, this feature will allow investors to purchase stakes in companies such as Amazon, Apple, and “thousands of others” for as little as $1. Currently the company says it intends to launch this capability starting next week and is inviting users to sign-up for early access.
The addition of fractional shares to the Robinhood platform is far from surprising. In fact one could argue that the app is a bit late to the party as newcomers such as SoFi Invest and others have already beaten them to the punch. However, in the specific case of SoFi, that company notes that they only place fractional share orders once per day. Meanwhile Robinhood states that their orders will still be made in real-time.
While this new functionality was the headlining feature of a new blog post from Robinhood, it wasn’t the only one announced. The FinTech also teased support for a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) that will allow users to automatically reinvest dividends they might earn from company stocks and ETFs. Additionally the app plans to add the ability to schedule Recurring Investments.
Word of these new features comes as Robinhood is in the process of rolling out its cash management account at long last. Of course it also comes on the heels of several discount brokerages following Robinhood’s lead and cutting their trade commissions to $0. Elsewhere the FinTech recently announced that they would be making their way to the United Kingdom — a country where nothing newsworthy happened this week.
Ultimately, even if Robinhood isn’t the first to make fractional shares available to newbie investors, adding the feature to their platform does make a lot of sense. Despite some of the troubles of the app has seen in the past year, there’s no question that it remains a powerhouse for bringing new and different investors to the market. Thus this latest addition only promises to keep that rolling and hopefully give Robinhood a bullseye it could really use.
