Robinhood trade visibility

Two nights ago, I was speaking with someone at dinner about the insanity that was the Gamestop saga of 2021. If you weren’t aware, there was a short squeeze that caused $GME to briefly shoot from ~$20 to $400 per share. During this time, Robinhood had to halt trading because they didn’t have enough liquidity to facilitate the trades people were trying to make on their platform. What a mess.

While I did have a bit of fun in 2020 and 2021 trading derivates and a little bit of Gamestop, I’ve reigned in my investing to focus primarily one index funds, tech, and a blend of crypto (mainly the big coins). Something that’s always fascinated me about trading stocks is that there’s always someone on the other end of the trade. I got the chance to visit the New York Stock Exchange last year and seeing the inner machinations of the stock market was fascinating.

Robinhood now does a good job of clearly showing you the price and spread of the position you’re trying to sell. However, I wonder what it might look like if you could actually see the individual who holds the stock you’re trying to sell. In this instance, I’m purchasing $SNAP from Nancy Pelosi.

There are probably some privacy considerations that would prohibit this from ever happening, but it’d be fun if the curtain was pulled back a bit more on what’s happening when you make a trade.

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