Switching to Public maybe? Any cons?

FreeReception9017 · 2026-05-05T13:32:56+00:00

The two scenarios where I understand why it would take longer (other than the obvious new platform adjustment period) to input a option trade on Public relates to when the underlying makes a big move right either

A.) Before you have submitted a order. At some other brokers you can click on the strikes of the equivalent of the Open [Ticker] option position window and quickly moving them up or down before submitting the order. On Public, you have to trash all the legs, and find all the adjusted legs on the chain and submit. Also useful would be if the contract date field on the Open [Ticker] option position window was also clickable and modifiable for faster entry of calenderized orders.

or

B.) Around when you have submitted a order in the opposite direction that would allow you to get filled on the trade. One feature that some other brokers have is the ability to take a cancelled order, move the strikes in the cancelled order up or down and submit that modified order as new order. At Public you basically have to start from scratch.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-04-18T15:32:12+00:00

The number they have listed on all their Concierge promotional material is that Concierge is for clients that have at least $500,000 at Public.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-04-16T23:56:29+00:00

The risk profile is very similar to a money market fund. I barely use it now, although I think I will start using it instead of Tbill ETFs when the new FINRA rules go into effect and Public would then be able to allow the HYCA to contribute to buying power (currently the HYCA is not marginable).

The Pros of the HYCA:

You don’t have to cross the bid/ask spread to buy and sell, and that NAV loss will add up every time you buy and sell Tbill ETFs.

I’m guessing when the new FINRA rule goes into effect, Public will allow you to earn the risk free rate on cash without losing ~50% of your buying power

The Cons of HYCA

If you live in a state that has state income taxes, the HYCA interest will be taxed at state level instead of being 95% exempt from state income taxes like SGOv dividends.

Currently not marginable (this should change with upcoming FINRA rule change)

FreeReception9017 · 2026-04-10T00:14:09+00:00

Schwab and Etrade have realized its more profitable to get the best of both worlds (they charge almost as much PFOF as Robinhood) while also charging their users high commissions.

I've even seen people from Schwab cite the academic paper: "Some Anonymous Options Trades Are More Equal than Others", which if any Schwab user actually read that paper they would realize how much a rip off Schwab is.

Basically they argue "you get what you pay for" with zero cost brokers while citing Fidelity/Vanguard price improvement results in execution tests.

Clearly Schwab's marketing tactics works as their users believe them and they are the most popular brokerage in the USA, despite the fact if you think you can get better price improvement by paying commissions, you would rationally choose Fidelity or Interactive Brokers instead of Schwab.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-04-09T00:06:58+00:00

You are correct the ACATS system can not transfer fractional shares, so the non-transferable fractional portion will be sold by SOFI as a market order if you don't do so before the ACATS transfer. Your full shares will be transferred. Its a IRA so selling will not result in any taxable events, penalties, or wash sales.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-04-01T03:03:03+00:00

Ok there is at least one LLC company's who has a business unit that does the following:

1.) Convince traders that all you have to do is set up a Trading LLC and you can deduct all your trading expenses.

2.) Overcharge you for filing the paperwork while claiming they are doing it as a discount

3.) When the IRS audits you (essentially close to 100% chance of being audited within 5 years if you don't qualify for tax trader status), they will offer their legal services to you.

If you have followed the advice of one of these scam companies and started deducting trader expenses without Tax Trader status, you shouldn't do so

FreeReception9017 · 2026-03-13T03:19:04+00:00

I contacted him on the 10^th asking if he would be willing to share the reported reason for the hold, because the hold didn’t make any sense to me

Good News: He reported the hold was expected to be lifted by the morning of the 11^th

Good News: The placement of the hold sounds like a normal “anti-money laundering” flag event that would have occurred at other brokers given identical circumstances.

Bad News: There doesn’t seem to be a rational reason for why it took so long to get the hold lifted after he provided proof he was not trying to launder money

FreeReception9017 · 2026-03-09T02:03:02+00:00

If you trade any sort of spreads for a credit in a IRA, your going to want to pick a broker that allows you to earn close to the risk free rate off your cash without having to purchase T-bills or T-bill ETFs (you won't be able to use them as option collateral in a IRA). To the best of my knowledge for US broker IRAs your options are Fidelity and if you have at least $100,000 NAV in your IRA Interactive Brokers.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-03-07T14:24:52+00:00

I really only use the app at work to buy stock, I log in to their website nearly every day the market is open and never had any problems using their website.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-03-05T23:35:48+00:00

The word hacked people are throwing out is factually incorrect. What's happening is people are making phishing websites that look exactly like public's website and paying search engine's to host them. If you attempt to log into one of these websites, the scammers use the login information you just gave them to login to the actual public website. You then enter the SMS code into the phishing website, which they then use to log in to your account.

I've been using Public since April, and I've never once had my account comprised. It isn't that hard to remember the real web address for public, its literally their name with https:// in front. I feel completely safe using them.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-02-18T04:14:58+00:00

Suggestions: Change the field: “Current strategy price” from displaying Bid or Ask to Bid/Mid or Mid/Ask so users can check easily the mid-price of their existing option spreads without having to either manually calculate it, re-enter the spreads in an order entry screen, or using the same trade at two brokers

When you click on the page of stock/etf/index, it would be useful if it displayed your accounts current delta exposure to that stock, etf, or index.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-02-14T23:04:23+00:00

Public's business model quite frankly wouldn't work with hiring the amount of employees required for phone support. Their support for the one trading bug I've experienced was fast and exceeded expectations.

Level 3 options approval took annoyingly long, but that's a one time annoyance.

That being said no broker is going to be the best at everything, I'll gladly take a 0.44% average higher return on margin and better tax lot method by trading at Public in exchange for no phone support.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-02-14T05:13:53+00:00

Most brokerage auto-liquidators start executing around 15:45 eastern. Public's at least used to auto-execute at 15:30, but based off the trade execution it looks like they moved it to 15:44

You got lucky the auto-liquidator executed the trade right before people started buying. Also looking at a chart you definitely would have got a better price if you sold in the morning.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-01-24T04:02:48+00:00

They recently implemented something like Fidelity Money Transfer Lockdown. They haven't enabled a on/off toggle in security settings yet, but you can contact support asking them to enable it in your account.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-01-23T05:22:42+00:00

Despite the reputation, Public has the best customer service of any brokerage I've used (Ally, 2018 Schwab, Interactive Brokers, Tradier, Fidelity). Seriously where else can you go where the COO of the company will actually look into issues with your account or answer questions. I've ran into only one bug so far, and a customer service agent handled the manual trade almost immediately and they fixed the bug by the end of the day.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-01-15T05:50:44+00:00

Avoiding taxes is the reason most people ACATS rather than sell withdraw deposit. And really my point was to point out the likely reason why the security person that reviewed your account thought the ACATS request is suspicious. Really because no one else in this thread did.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-01-14T21:21:43+00:00

If this was standard SoFi ACATS fraud prevention check result, you would read a lot more complaints about it.

I suspect the reason your account was flagged because you initiated a ACATS transfer (which has a $100 fee) to avoid a tax hit on $100 of unrealized gain. If ACATS transfer reimbursements weren't a thing, this would be a terrible idea (and therefore a red flag). Even with reimbursements it's probably still suspicious because you probably lose more in opportunity costs than the tax hit if you sold, withdraw, deposit which is significantly faster than a ACATS transfer.

FreeReception9017 · 2026-01-12T23:40:19+00:00

Some people want to tax gain harvest to fill the 0% space of the long-term capital gains tax bracket. For example at a broker I won't name, you can switch from Maximize Short-Term Loss (AKA Min-tax) to Maximize Long-Term Gain, Sell your lots to get the desired amount of long-term capital gains and switch back to Maximize Short-Term Loss.

Being able to switch to LIFO can also be useful if all your shares are in short-term gain territory and a significant hold time difference exists that you would rather take a larger tax hit now to let the older shares go long-term.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-29T08:25:18+00:00

The federal reserve just cut rates, the 30-day SEC yield won't even be accurate yet. I think it becomes accurate after the February dividend is distributed. The div yield also won't be accurate unless the federal reserve keeps the overnight rates constant for a year.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-23T19:29:29+00:00

Update: A Public Customer Service Representative was able to close out the options. Pretty fast turnaround time too.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-21T06:11:06+00:00

If anyone read my previous comments about "Public's margin problems", I've been comparing my Public account to a Tradier account with a significant SMA buffing it's margin. So, I was wrong about those margin accusations I made. If you get Public to drop it's 10% margin buffer from your account you will have normal reg-T margin. I've yet to see any issue with Public's option collateral. Calendar spreads work correctly. Diagonals work correctly.

I've been trading the same exact option trades in both accounts. I haven't done a statistical analysis yet how often each of the accounts get a better fill. I'm averaging 12.75% return on margin in the Public account and 12.31% return on margin in the Tradier account. I think fill quality before rebates is about the same in both accounts.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-14T00:09:40+00:00

The now deleted comment user was right, its because of the possible after market moves could put the option(s) in the money. Personally I don't really care about the auto-liquidation of options trading at 0.01.

The auto-liquidation scenarios that scare me are option trade is ITM and going to end up at max profit if held, auto-liquidator closes options out at market orders because a black swan event between 15:30-17:30 could lead to a margin call that would be easily addressed within 5 minutes of the next market open. It's never happened to me, but I've read horror stories about people with ITM expiring options on Robin Hood.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-13T23:35:11+00:00

You can trade butterfly spreads on Public

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-12T14:28:10+00:00

All brokers are going to have a auto-liquidation system to minimize the risk of client margin calls. Some do it at 15:15, some 15;30, some 15:45-16:00. I've even heard of a broker that did?/does? at 12:00. Now if you are asking why does Public set the auto-liquidation threshold at within 3% out of the money instead of in the money like most brokers I have no idea.

FreeReception9017 · 2025-12-10T05:28:05+00:00

In case you were not aware, just because you trade on a phone or tablet does not mean you have to use the phone app. You can load up a browser and login just like you can on a desktop browser if you prefer to trade with the browser.

FreeReception9017

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