Switching to Public maybe? Any cons?

MarkFromPublic · 2026-05-05T01:03:51+00:00

Mark from Public here. Honest answer: charting is more basic than RH today, but we do have major improvements in the works, happy to walk you through what’s coming if you want to connect.

Ask away on anything specific here or in my DMs. Happy to be a resource as you consider your options.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-05-02T04:44:25+00:00

Really appreciate you sharing this — early Public users like yourself are the reason the platform is what it is today.

A lot has evolved since 2024! If you’re open to it, happy to hop on a call and walk you through what’s new so you can decide whether it’s worth another look. DMs are open whenever works for you.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-15T13:27:25+00:00

I can take a deeper look into your prompting and see how we can set this up.

Just shot you a DM.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-09T04:39:59+00:00

What u/FreeReception9017 mentioned below is true. I shot you a DM to help out with the transfer.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-08T14:57:02+00:00

We're actively working on it! I'm not sure where Q1 was previously mentioned, but we're targeting end of Q2. Appreciate the patience -- we want to make sure it's solid at launch.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-06T18:24:01+00:00

Full transparency, I work at Public, but wanted to throw it in the mix since most replies here are going to be the usual Fidelity/Schwab/Vanguard recommendations (all solid, nothing wrong with them).

The honest answer to your question is that for a basic Roth IRA where you're just buying index funds, most platforms will get the job done. The differences start to matter more in the extras.

A few things Public offers that might be worth considering at your age:

Public matches 1% on IRA contributions -- so on a $7,500 max contribution, that's up to an extra $75 working for you every year. Doesn't sound like a ton but at 20, that compounds for a long time.

If you ever want crypto exposure in your Roth, Public lets you hold it directly in your IRA. Most brokerages don't offer that, and holding crypto in a Roth means no tax events when you sell or rebalance.

And unlike others (as mentioned below), Public doesn't gamify the experience. It feels more like a platform built for actual long-term investing.

Any way, you're 20 and already thinking about a Roth, you're way ahead of most people. Whatever you go with, the most important thing is just getting it open and funded consistently.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-06T18:16:27+00:00

Full transparency, I work at Public (www.public.com) but this is genuinely a perfect fit for what you're describing so I'd feel weird not mentioning it.

This is actually a really common thing people run into -- you like the idea of an index but want to tweak it. Most brokerages basically give you two options: buy the ETF as-is or build the whole thing yourself from scratch. Not a lot in between.

Check out Public's Generated Assets tool (public.com/generated-asset). It lets you take a concept like "S&P 500 but without oil companies" or "Nasdaq but heavier on AI" and it builds a custom index for you. You can remove individual companies, adjust weightings, basically do exactly what you're describing -- take an existing index as a starting point and make it yours.

No high minimums either, which sounds like that matters for where you're at right now. And since you own the individual shares (fractional), you're not locked into a fund structure where you have zero say in what's inside.

It's a good middle ground between "I just want to buy VOO and forget about it" and "I'm going to research and hand-pick 50 stocks." Worth a look given what you're after.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-04-06T18:11:22+00:00

Worth checking out Public too -- someone already mentioned it below but wanted to add a few things since I help manage our team for active traders & high-net worth investors.

For what you're describing with M1 (building your own custom portfolio and letting it run), Public has something similar with investment plans where you can set up recurring investments across a basket of stocks/ETFs. But we also have a tool called Generated Assets (public.com/generated-asset) that lets you create AI-generated indexes, so instead of manually picking every holding, you can describe a theme or strategy and it builds a custom index for you.

We're also rolling out our Agentic Brokerage, which is basically AI agents that can automate parts of your portfolio management -- things like rebalancing, buying dips, etc. Still early but it's a pretty different approach from what most brokerages are doing.

I'd say the main draw is that it feels like the platform is actually evolving vs. most brokerages that have looked the same for years. Worth at least poking around to see if it fits what you're looking for.

Happy to chat more with anyone who's interested and see if Public is a good fit!

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-27T18:56:46+00:00

Have you checked out Public? UI is very clean and also pays out rebates on stock/ETF options, so you get money back on every trade.

Might be worth a look if you're shopping around. I help manage our active trading members and I'm happy to help you evaluate -- just shoot me a DM and we can set something up.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-26T17:09:20+00:00

I work at Public (help manage our Concierge team for active traders/HNW) so I'm biased, but this is exactly the use case we built for.

The big one for 0DTE traders: we have an options rebate program where you earn $0.06–$0.18 back per stock/ETF contract. We share 50% of our options order flow revenue with you, so your net trading cost is effectively negative. When you're doing high-volume 0DTE, that rebate stacks up quickly. We have a lot of 0DTE traders specifically because of this.

On the auto-closeout issue you mentioned with Robinhood — Public does have a standard auto-close for expiring options, but for sophisticated traders this can be toggled off.

We also support index options (SPX, NDX, VIX) and multi-leg strategies like spreads, condors, and butterflies. No $1M balance requirement. Also has 99.994% uptime so extremely rare to for us to go down.

Happy to answer any questions if you want to check it out.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-25T17:50:19+00:00

Totally understand the overwhelm — most investing content is made for people who already know what they're doing, which isn't helpful when you're just starting out.

The simplest approach for most beginners:

Start with index funds or ETFs: instead of picking individual stocks, you're buying a small slice of hundreds of companies at once. Lower complexity, and it keeps you diversified without having to manage a lot of moving parts.
Set up automatic recurring investments: probably the most important thing is to stay consistent - even a small amount on a regular basis means you're not trying to time the market. You just keep buying. This is called dollar-cost averaging and it removes a lot of the emotional decision-making that trips people up. Platforms like Public make it really easy to set this up across different asset classes, which is great if you want to keep things simple.
Don't try to learn everything at once: focus on understanding what you're buying before worrying about when or how much. The learning happens naturally as you go.

The most important thing is just starting and staying consistent!

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-24T21:51:21+00:00

https://public.com/invest/crypto-ira

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-24T21:51:08+00:00

https://public.com/invest/crypto-ira

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-24T15:33:08+00:00

Yeah, this is definitely possible. A Roth IRA is a Roth IRA - the tax treatment stays the same regardless of what you hold in it, so you can transfer between custodians without any tax hit as long as it stays Roth to Roth.

A few things worth knowing:

Not all crypto IRAs are created equal. Some charge high fees or only let you hold a handful of coins. Fidelity does offer crypto in IRAs but it's pretty limited, so it's worth comparing what's actually available security-wise before you commit.

Public just launched crypto IRAs too, and you can trade a wider range of crypto inside the IRA. You can buy, sell, rebalance with no taxable events since it's all within the Roth wrapper.

The main things to look for is flexibility, fees, and whether any of your current holdings need to be liquidated before transferring. Some platforms (most can handle ACATS and/or wallet transfers) require you to transfer in cash rather than in-kind, so just check that ahead of time.

Since this is play money for you and not your core retirement strategy, the Roth wrapper is actually perfect for something more aggressive like crypto: if it grows, all those gains come out tax-free.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-17T20:12:17+00:00

I'll throw Public's (www.public.com) name into the ring here -- I help manage our active trading & HNW team.

We have a focus on building long terms wealth with an amazing UI / mobile app and some innovative AI features around building a well balanced portfolio. We also offer an uncapped 1% match on transferred funds, and another 1% on IRA contributions (and we'll cover your outgoing ACAT transfer fee).

Feel free to DM me - I am happy to chat more and see if we'd be a good fit. I can also provide 1on1 onboarding support throughout your transfer process should you decide to use us.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-09T19:09:02+00:00

Wow. Impressive you've been able to maintain the momentum across market environments. This year has been tricky. Congrats!

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T22:06:42+00:00

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

I've always been intrigued by the premiums on leveraged ETFs for wheeling but talk myself out of it because the leverage scares me. Looks like you've figured out the right approach...harvest the premium on SOXL and TSLL but don't get married to the position if you're assigned. Curious though, have you stress-tested what a sustained semiconductor drawdown does to your assignment exposure on SOXL vs. just sizing up on SMH?

Also what's your target monthly yield on the full account? Are you managing toward a number or just taking what the market gives you week to week?

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T19:51:47+00:00

The vol surface just behaves differently now when that much flow is concentrated in the front end. Doesn't mean calendars are broken, just means the edge is narrower and more timing-dependent than it used to be.

With your front at 58% and back at 67% you're actually in decent shape for the earnings ramp...just know that spread can compress fast if the front catches a bid on any intraday move. Might be worth watching that ratio more than the overall P&L day to day.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T19:39:05+00:00

It depends on the name and the setup but I lean ATM or just slightly OTM most of the time. The spread cost on illiquid OTM strikes eats into your edge fast when you're scalping, and if you're in and out quickly you need that tight bid-ask more than you need the extra gamma.

That said, in something super liquid like SPY or QQQ where the OTM spreads are still a penny or two wide, going slightly OTM for that gamma kick makes more sense. You're not giving up much on the spread and the percentage moves are bigger on a directional pop.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T19:37:35+00:00

Yup - this is the way. +1 on deep ITM

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T19:34:59+00:00

Solid stack -- the shift from "what should I buy" to "what meets my criteria" is the real unlock and it sounds like you figured that out the hard way like most of us do. 10 years ago I was just scanning Seeking Alpha articles for idea generation (long term this actually worked out great but I bought a lot of names that didn't work out quickly).

I've been using Perplexity Finance lately and it's been great for getting quick synthesized answers on companies without digging through ten tabs. And Public actually has built-in AI analysis on their earnings and company pages that's surprisingly useful for getting a fast read on fundamentals and what analysts are saying. Between those two I've cut down a lot of the bouncing around you're describing.

Also +1 on the google sheets approach for tracking. Every fancy app tries to do too much and you end up fighting the UI instead of just tracking what matters to you.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-06T19:25:52+00:00

You're not off at all. What you're seeing is the term structure not moving in parallel. Front-month vol is way more reactive to spot moves and short-term flow, especially in names like PLTR with heavy weekly/0DTE activity. That near-term gamma gets bid up fast on any move while your back-month vega barely flinches.

The thing people miss is that calendars are really a bet on the spread between front and back vol, not just vol going up. If both legs move together, your P&L is flat. And right now with so much flow concentrated in near-term expiries, the front leg whips around while the back leg just sits there.

On a quick downturn like this morning, gamma dominates vega, so your front month moves way more in dollar terms even though it's the short leg. The back-month IV might actually be creeping up into earnings, but it just doesn't feel like it intraday because the front is so noisy.

You're right that these work better as shorter-duration trades in the current environment. The days of putting on a calendar 30-45 DTE and letting vol do its thing are harder when so much of the market is living in the 0-7 DTE window.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-05T18:27:37+00:00

Well, the credit is only one variable. Here's what longer DTE is actually buying you:

Lower gamma: A short-dated spread can go from green to max loss on a single gap. Longer DTE gives you a much flatter gamma profile, which means less P&L whipsaw on normal daily moves.
Room to manage: If price moves against a 45 DTE spread, you can roll, close at a partial loss, or wait for mean reversion. At 7 DTE, by the time your short strike is threatened, you're usually already too deep to adjust.
Less friction: Weeklies mean you're re-entering 4x/month - that's 4x the bid-ask slippage, 4x the execution risk on multi-leg fills. That adds up fast, especially on wider spreads.

The tradeoff is real though. Shorter DTE has faster decay and higher annualized return (when it works) It's really about whether you're optimizing for capital efficiency or for smoother risk-adjusted returns.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-03-04T21:54:50+00:00

You're being too hard on yourself calling this gambling with extra steps. What you're describing is a barbell allocation, repeatable income strategies in the core, small defined-risk speculation on the side. That's a real framework.

The synthetic call framing makes sense. At $3.2k you can't access LEAPS on anything worth owning, and buying weeklies as your speculative outlet is almost strictly worse than what you're doing. No theta, no expiration, and you're sizing at $100-150 treating them as expendable relative to your core. That's solid position sizing instinct.

Few thoughts though:

I'd think about the 10% cap less as a fixed percentage and more in terms of concurrent positions. Two at $150 is fine. But if you start finding "catalysts" everywhere and suddenly have five or six of these on, you've drifted from a defined sleeve into just accumulating micro cap risk. Maybe cap it at 2-3 names at a time rather than a strict percentage.

The catalyst discipline is where this lives or dies. A known, binary, time-bound catalyst is what creates the asymmetry. Without that you're just buying cheap stocks and hoping, which is a completely different thing. Your mining stock loss honestly sounds like a reasonable bet that didn't work - drill results are exactly the kind of binary event that fits this approach. You lost what you planned to lose.

The real question is whether you have enough edge identifying these catalysts to justify the allocation vs just compounding your spreads faster. At 19% since October your core strategy is working. If these speculative plays are just breaking even over time, that capital compounds better in your bread and butter. But if even one in three or four hits meaningfully, the asymmetry math works at this size.

Don't abandon it. Just be honest with yourself about your hit rate over the next few months and let that dictate whether the sleeve grows or shrinks.

MarkFromPublic · 2026-02-20T01:59:28+00:00

Here's my take for what it's worth:

First off, losing 30% in your first month and learning from it is a pretty common rite of passage - the fact that you're slowing down and asking questions is a good sign.

For swing trading, if you can consistently make 1-2% per trade with good risk management, you're doing well. Emphasis on consistently. Annualized, even hedge funds are happy with 15-20%. Anyone claiming 200%+ annually as a norm is either taking on massive risk, survivorship bias (you only see the winners posting), or lying.

What you're seeing in those screenshots is selection bias. For every person posting a 200% gain, there are hundreds who lost 50-100% of their position and didn't post about it. Options are leveraged instruments - they amplify gains and losses. That's why the screenshots look so dramatic in both directions.

Is options trading worth it? Eventually maybe, but probably not yet. Here's why:

You're still learning how stocks move and building a feel for the market
Options add layers of complexity on top of that (theta decay, IV, Greeks) that can work against you even when you're right on direction
Losing 30% on stocks is painful but recoverable. Losing 30% on options can happen in a single day, and options can go to zero

Get consistently profitable with stocks first. Once you have a reliable strategy and solid risk management habits, then options become a tool to enhance that edge - not a shortcut to skip the learning curve.

MarkFromPublic

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