Foreign. The old Bulgarian boy or should I say the young Bulgarian boy who for quite a while was Public Enemy Number One He was near and dear to many of our cold black hearts has once again surfaced. And if you don't know who I'm talking about I am talking about the CEO and co-founder of Robin Hood Vlad Tennev who seems to be the exact opposite of the mythological Robin Hood story. Instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, he seems to steal from the poor the average Joe like you and me and lying his own pockets.

In a weird sense I would argue that this guy who has now you know showed up in the public once again is really just some strange Frankenstein story of the actual Robin Hood Anywho, this is what he's most recently up to. He did a classically he did a talk with Sorkin on Squawkbox and here's what he had to say: Let's let's talk about this retirement account and then let's maybe get into some of the more thornier issues around what's going on. uh, in your space these days. How big a deal is this? And how does this change the equation for Robin Hood Given the focus at least historically on younger consumers, now we're talking about retirement.

Well, Andrew um, the world is changing around us. You know we've talked a lot about inflation and Rising interest rates. but one of the other things that's been changing is the nature of work. You see an increasing number of people sort of avoiding the one employer traditional model and doing freelance work.

doing gig economy work, having multiple sources of income, and uh, with this product, we're excited to offer a retirement account that's specifically geared towards the needs of these customers. So as you mentioned earlier, it's the first and only uh Ira that offers a match. And with the nature of work changing, the traditional kind of employer as a safety net model is evaporating a little bit too. and we're happy for Robin Hood to kind of step in and help our customers retire.

And even though you know there might be less interest in investing than there was in 2020 and 2021, uh, interest among retirement, particularly among Gen Z and younger people is really high. and you have, uh, each successive generation of consumers uh, interested in in retirement at an earlier stage, right? So there is the second part that we're going to get into: I Just wanted to quickly rewind here because I think this is important. At first you might be thinking hey, that sounds like a legitimately good offer. traditional IRA or Roth IRA Hey, I think everyone should be investing for the retirement.

a zero commission fees also great. that is a Hallmark of many Brokers Now I would argue that Robin Hood started it one percent match on every contribution dollar. so if you give 100, they'll give you one. This sounds good.

This is a new thing. I Personally have not heard of a one percent match on every contribution dollar and you might be thinking to yourself, okay, good, good, good. What are you talking about Matt Why are you talking smack on the boy from Bulgaria What's wrong here? Well folks, this salesman is not just any run in the middle salesman, he's a slimy snake oil salesman. What we have right here: Traditional IRA Roth IRA One percent Match Zero Commission fees These are all three enticing things.

The sound of a siren saying, come here, join us, Give us your money and you know why he would do. That is because he knows as soon as you're on his platform Robin And he knows there's a good chance that a high percentage is going to make some sort of training. and the more you're trading on Robinhood the more you're engaging in payment for order flow. I Know many of my existing users know what Pfoth is, but to my new viewers, this is the practice of a brokerage like Robin Hood sending your orders to a wholesale retailer.

A retail wholesaler is probably the best way in internalizers. They're various names, but it never hits the lit exchange. You are not competing on the New York Stock Exchange You're not competing on the NASDAQ You are competing basically with Citadel We know that from various government hearings they are the market maker. If you're buying, they're selling.

If you're selling, they're buying. And what they're doing is basically the spread the difference between the bid and the ask. They're always just running that difference. And that's exactly why even in this environment.

Citadel Just reported today they had profits of 32 This year they made billions and billions and billions of dollars off of this practice which costs many people. Pension Funds ETFs billions of dollars because it's widening the spread and that's how they make their money so they don't care. This right here. it's as I alluded to before.

It's enticing to get you on your platform. It all sounds good, but there's going to be X percentage of people who are like, you know what? I might trade a little bit and they're going to start engaging in something that is negative to themselves and I would take it a step further and say negative to the entire stock market ecosystem and they don't even know it. Wild Wild wild that we're getting it from the boy from Bulgaria but he did not stop there. We got to talk about the sandbankment freed of all of it.

Uh, he of course imagine asking one complete Fraud's opinion about another complete fraud I mean amazing. The irony said, taking a stake in your company. there was a lot of speculation as you very well know that he wanted to, maybe even buy the entire business. What did you think when you heard about the bankruptcy and all of the other um now speculation or Worse around what's happened here? Yeah, um well, it's it's a yeah, uh, found it super big big bummer brother like I Heard that news and I just thought, oh shucks, that's just that's a bummer with a capital B I Think an unfortunate outcome for customers who have their money locked up.

um in FTX and FTX us I Think my takeaway in it's something that we haven't really heard discussed too much is there's a there's a little bit of um, you know a pattern that I'm starting to see with these foreign companies that create U.S subsidiaries and these U.S subsidiaries are relatively small, but it gives them access to the US market. and um, you know Robinhood operates a little bit differently than that. We're a U.S parent company. Uh, we obviously have regulated businesses here, but I think companies have been using kind of these these foreign home bases.

Whether they be in the Caribbean in the case of FTX or you know you've got companies in China and they haven't been um, sort of scrutinized to the to the same degree. and I think that's something that Regulators should take a look at and make sure that you know the scrutiny is the same if not higher. If if you're offshore and operating a business that has subsidiaries that serve American customers, you just have to appreciate his words. When he is running a business that essentially relies on payment for order flow he gets paid from Citadel Most likely other players get paid from virtue, but this guy gets paid from Citadel and he's talking about like regular.

The guy who's in charge of our regulations SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has gone out of his way multiple times to say that payment for order flow is most likely a conflict of interest. Ridiculous. Literally, within the past 24, 48 Hours payment for order flow was banned in Singapore It's previously been banned in the UK, Australia and Canada And then this guy has the balls to be like I think Regulators need to step it up when our current Regulators are saying exactly what you're doing at Robinhood no one should be doing this is wild if it does. If it doesn't make you laugh, you're gonna end up ripping your hair out instead.

so you just have to sit back and give it a chuckle. The absolute incredible dialogue we're getting from Sorkin and Robinhood as if we're just being gaslit. Folks, we were just being gaslit of the actual scenario. Hey, I know you have a bunch of thoughts, so please let me know in a comment below.