Robinhood continues to introduce a bunch of new features aimed at diversifying its platform that is mostly used by millennials to trade stocks and cryptocurrency. The no-fee investing app today launched ‘Recurring Investments’ functionality to all users to let them schedule daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly investments into stocks.
A recurring investment is a process in which a client wants to invest an amount of money into a particular instrument or product on a regular basis. Robinhood developed its platform to take care of these repetitive investments in one simple step.
Open a Trading Account Today With These Recommended Brokers
“With just a few taps, you can schedule automatic investments on a recurring basis in thousands of stocks and ETFs (Exchange traded funds that allow you to invest in a group of stocks) and potentially grow your investments for the future,” the company said.
Robinhood’s announcement further states that setting up a recurring investment is “intuitive, simple, and takes less than a minute.” As explained on the free-commission app’s blog, “Pick your desired stock or ETF, choose any amount and frequency at which you’d like to invest — daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly — and we’ll handle the rest. You don’t need a lot to get started — we found the most common amount invested with Recurring Investments is just $10.”
Robinhood Has to Stay Ahead
Robinhood initially launched this feature to select users in tandem with other more widely requested features. The firm also announced the support of Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) which allows users to automatically reinvest cash dividends they receive into stocks or ETF, as well as offering its customers the ability to buy and sell fractional shares with as little as $1. The 'fractional stock' feature allows small-bucks investors to diversify their portfolios by spreading their relatively small capital over a broader range of stocks.
The move comes as Robinhood tries to continue to woo its younger investors, which exploded to more than thirteen million. Six years after Robinhood launched with no-fee trading, major brokerages were catching up with a wave of fee-eliminating announcements over the past year. As incumbent brokerages moved to copy the seven-year Startup ’s free trading model, Robinhood has to stay ahead in inclusive financial tools.
Last week, Robinhood’s application for iPhone received a notable update after Apple introduced the concept of Home Screen widgets in iOS 14, which provide information from apps at a glance. Robinhood widgets now allow users to check their portfolio, holdings, and more, without having to tap into the app.
Furthermore, Robinhood has made multiple changes to its options trading products – part of the improvements the app promised to do after one of its customers died by suicide thinking he incurred losses of over $700,000.
