[c1pher]

Just curious if anyone uses this/is a customer and what their thoughts are.

[c1pher]

Very telling....

[Run Silent]

The fact that they make most of their earnings from payment for order flow, a process designed by Bernie Madoff should tell you all you need to know....

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by Run Silent

The fact that they make most of their earnings from payment for order flow, a process designed by Bernie Madoff should tell you all you need to know....

But Bernie broke the law, how do these guys operate legally?

It’s not a ponzi scheme.

[Run Silent]

Originally Posted by c1pher

But Bernie broke the law, how do these guys operate legally?

It’s not a ponzi scheme.

Never said it was. Payment for order flow is legal under certain circumstances, but is sketchy as hell and generally regarded as legal bribery and not above board.

Not sure why you would be interested in this broker - what benefit is it to you as compared to something mainstream, like Vanguard or Merrill Edge?

Plus - they only have something like 450m in assets under management. That is extremely tiny. Makes me nervous as hell.

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by Run Silent

Never said it was. Payment for order flow is legal under certain circumstances, but is sketchy as hell and generally regarded as legal bribery and not above board.

Not sure why you would be interested in this broker - what benefit is it to you as compared to something mainstream, like Vanguard or Merrill Edge?

Plus - they only have something like 450m in assets under management. That is extremely tiny. Makes me nervous as hell.

I’m merely asking about it and not defending themHowever, you have access across the board to Vanguard, Merrill, ETFs, stocks etc and have the flexibility to do checking, IRAs or liquid investment accounts for no fees. Plus you can loan yourself money at a competitive rate without needing to pull out of investments. It seems somewhat compelling and similar to something like wealthfront and betterment. M1 Finance continually gets mentioned as one of the top roboadvisor platforms. There’s also a crowdsourced feel in that people can share their pies or illustrate how their pies perform vs others and if made public, you can simply copy their strategy. Merely seems interesting and a somewhat different take on investing.

As far as how they get paid this is what they say:
https://www.m1finance.com/blog/how-m1-makes-money/

Essentially, they do make money off bundling orders through preferred brokerages, loans customers take and fees from M1 Spend/Plus.