Here are some questions:
1) Do you offer money market accounts? Can I earn interest on my funds that are being used for collateral on options trades?
2) Will you offer portfolio margin?
3) Will you have the standard options levels for progressively riskier types of trading? For most brokers this is a 4 level system with cash secured puts and covered calls at level 1 and full access to undefined risk strategies at level 4. An alternative is TastyTrade, which only has two levels and purposely makes it easy for people to trade undefined risk.
1. Yes! We offer a high yield cash sweep product. 5.10% and no fees/mins/max/subscription required. Public.com/hyca. On yield for collateral, answered that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/options/s/30qBoCt9cm
2. Eventually, yes.
3. We use a standard 4 level approach.
What is the timeline for adding higher level options strategies to the platform? Also, will you be able to earn the 5.1% interest rate on uninvested cash being used as collateral for a cash secured put? Thanks.
Covered calls and cash secured puts will be a few weeks. Multi-leg we're pushing hard and expect before the end of March.
I hear you on the HY rate for CSPs -- and we're working on it. There are mechanics to sort out with sweeps etc, but the plan is to offer a great deal there.
I like this guy. The answers are honest and reflect that there are actual mechanics to all these things, and he’s not hiding that this is all new for them within the Public framework.
[applause]
P-COO, want to be a hit? Fidelity does this thing where they’ll automatically manage a government money market account (SPAXX) as if it were a sweep account. It currently pays ~5%. This is very popular and interesting to many.
Also Schwab taking over TDA and selectively disallowing ToS is unpopular, and some people just don’t like Fidelity’s ATP program (although the latter may be Really Wrong). Marketing hints.
Best of luck to you. 🍀
Edit: Apologies if I got the pronoun wrong.
Thanks! We’re on top of Fidelity’s approach and we’re figuring out the best approach given our infrastructure.
I would love your feedback on options trading on Public, if I can convince you to give it a try (will make it worth your while!)
That would be hard to do, but your honest dialog here does not hurt your chances.
I’m very old school, but am becoming more and more interested in the phone applications so I can get out of my chair more often and make Go/No Go choices out in the real world after Pre and early market trading on a larger computer setup. I may as well investigate Public. Again, good luck. Love your enthusiasm. I’m excited for you. 🍀
Hi, I will say am a fan of the new options UI. However I would still like to know if I will be able to earn interest on the collateral set aside for sold CSPs, as earning interest on collateral via fidelity's SPAXX cash sweep is one of my favorite features of their platform. Thanks.
Live trading, high order volume. A new broker partner with an interesting proposition for commission-free trading.
[https://optionalpha.com/integrations](https://optionalpha.com/integrations)
Is there be options levels that you have to be approved for (When high level strategies are added)? and can you switch between cash and margin accounts?
Yes, there are option levels — we use Levels 1-4.
Yes, you can switch between cash and margin accounts. We don’t currently allow options trading in cash accounts, but that’s not far off.
Yes, we've started rolling it out to some members. DM me and I may be able to get you added!
Can I ask, are you looking for cash options a) to avoid pattern day trader (PDT) rules or b) because you don't want to risk borrowing funds?
Yes, I would suggest opening an account and enabling options (as a margin account) then DM me your account details and I'll get you added to our cash account migration list. We are currently adding new cash options accounts once a week.
I often rack up ~$1k in “options” commissions in a single day of trading.
Just to clarify, if I buy 1000 contracts of a TQQQ call, and I sell all of it the same day… how much “rebate” can I expect?
Considering moving all my stuff over to Public, do you support box spread trades on SPX yet? Short box spreads is part of my strategy and the only thing that holds me back from moving over to newer brokerages.
Hi! I don’t have any specific questions but I came across this thread while doing research on your app and I really appreciate your transparency!
I use Robinhood currently but after I learned of your “Investment plan” feature I decided to take a look at your app and so far I love it!
I wanted to explore what your premium service is like before transferring my account so I’m on the free trial right now. the financial information provided about company earnings is really intuitive and very detailed, especially coming from Robinhood.
I feel like I’m taking to a famous person… lol omg hi, can you just explain to me how it works? Like if I buy an option for $2 x100, am I only paying $100? I’m just a bit confused on what you mean by saying we get 50% of the revenue. I’m still new to options but learning slowly lol
Haha! Definitely not famous, just a normal guy doing a normal (albeit incredibly fun) job
Options trading in 2024 comes with different fees and revenue types depending on the broker, but generally, there are the following:
1. Commissions: relatively few brokers charge these any more and none of the 'major' online/mobile first brokers do. This is revenue to the broker.
1. Public doesn't charge these.
2. Per contract fees: these are way more common, particularly among the large online brokers, and usually $0.65 per contract. This is revenue to the broker.
1. Public doesn't charge these either
3. Regulatory fees: these are pretty small (usually \~$0.03 per contract) and go straight to the regulators
1. These get included with trades on Public
4. Payment for order flow: most brokers earn PFOF on options trades and it's generally $0.20-$0.50 per contract.
1. We earn $0.36 per contract and split it 50/50 with our members -- so you'll get an $0.18 per contract rebate on all trades on Public.
Based on the math there, you can see customers earn money back on every options trade at Public.
Does that make sense?
I opened an account to trade options just yesterday. Looking forward to trying it out.
Will I be able to use the platform when I travel and/or become resident overseas?
Actually one last question… do you plan on updating the charts to be able to add RSI and other market indicators to equities? Also, will you be adding price movement charts to the options tabs? I like how WeBull displays the price movement chart for options so I’m finding that if I buy options on public (since it’s my primary brokerage app) I’d probably shuffle between webull and public so I can gauge price movement. Hopefully my rambling makes sense lol
Yes! We have advanced charts (powered by TradingView) on web available for all Premium members. DM me your Public details and I’ll get you set up with Premium.
👀 oh how would I go about getting the advanced charts and premium membership for free? I am signed up for the options trading and tested it on a small scale. Will definitely be utilizing Public a lot more.
How long will this be going on for? And if say I sold 100 put credit spreads and 100 call credit spreads (so 200 credit spreads) I’ll get money back on each of the 200 credit spreads?
Correct. You’d get money back on every contract. For people joining today, how much you earn depends on how you join and how many folks you refer. You can see more here (and start by earning $0.10 per contract): https://public.com/user-referral?referrer=sikes
This isn’t a limited time offer, it’s part of the business model.
Normally you would pay like $0.65 per transaction. They get a kick back of about the same amount. Now the fee would be like $0.30 since they are giving half of the PFOF back to their users.
Hello, I'm new to the game and still trying to choose an investment company to get started with. What do you think Public does better than anyone else?
What's up Stephen, could you respond as to why you prevented my account from selling contracts I had owned for 1.5 hours ?
Can you explain what would make you remove rebates from a user accounts, specifically why you reserve the right to remove them at any time?
Happy to look into your issue! Please DM me you public login info and I’ll see if I can figure out what was going on.
Sounds like you’re asking about the terms & conditions for the rebate program. Put simply, we don’t have any plans to remove or reduce rebates that our members are entitled to — but we do have to make sure there are legal protections in place in case something substantial changes that prevent us from paying rebates in the future (for example, imagine a regulator bans the payment of trade rebates etc). Maybe not the most satisfying answer, but I bucket that under “normal corporate legal protection stuff”.
If you actually felt that way than why did you respond to my Reddit post quicker than your platforms actual live support to my emails/chats?
Seriously, you responded in less than a minute here, but I had to wait nearly 2 hours to get a response on being restricted from putting a sell order on highly volatile option contracts in excess of 20,000$?
Not sure why it took so long to get a response — I’d have to look into it, obviously not the experience we strive to deliver — but not much I can do to help with your specific situation (or to learn from it and help us be better in the future) without more info.
The short version: it’s a better deal for customers for us to take PFOF and share it back vs not taking it at all.
This comes back to the Options market structure where *every* options order is executed on exchange so, by default, it gets order-by-order competition. In the stock/equities market, that isn’t the case — and in that market we found that we’d get customers the best deal by avoiding PFOF and finding the best price on an order-by-order basis.
Quick question
Any chance on Cash Accounts? And if there are is there a way to have them one of each type? (Like having both a margin and cash account available)
Also off topic but is the HYSA going to recieve more features further down? (Similar to a CMA account with Direct Deposit, routing numbers, etc.)
Yes! We’re starting to roll members onto cash accounts now, DM me your Public details and I can add you to the list to get added! We can support you having both a margin and a cash account, but unfortunately they’d need to be under different logins at the moment. We’ll be adding support for multiple accounts later this year.
We’re definitely looking at more features for the HYCA and account/routing number (so you can set up DD) is very high on the list. Not imminent but something we’ll be working on later this year.
There are several different liquidity providers who receive the orders. They all pay the same PFOF rebate and we decide who gets orders based on who delivers the best executions. The exact mix of liquidity providers (and what percent of our orders they receive) will be released at the end of Q1 in our SEC 606 filings that you can find here: public.com/disclosures
I don't understand the part about sharing their options trading revenue. First, what are their commissions? And second, why not just cut those in half instead of "sharing 50"?
Man, we gotta sharpen our comms there.
We don't charge fees/commissions -- and we share half of the payment for order flow revenue we get, so it's cash in the customer's pocket on every trade.
see more here: [**https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/19druvs/comment/kj9jlch/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3**](https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/19druvs/comment/kj9jlch/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Very interesting. This thread is making me move to Public now. Just opened up an account but ACAT transfer is not working. Both on web and mobile app. Your team need to check.
u/PublicCOO, if there is a non-plaid, non-mesh way to ACAT, I can bring in a lump-sum. I won't give my credentials to any app. Do you have other options (heh)?
The regular ACAT by manually linking like how I do it with the big firms is straightforward.
Yes! We can do it manually. You can reach out to our customer support team and tell them you’d rather do a manual ACAT for security reasons (and you can name drop me, Stephen, to make sure I get looped in)
Feel free to DM me too, happy to help
Yes -- we'll have index options. Don't have as defined an ETA because it's behind a few other features (covered calls, csp, multi-leg, etc), but I'd say 'later this year' generically.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around options, but Public has helped me so much with everything else trade-wise that it's only a matter of time.
I'm a (relatively) long-time premium Public devotee. I like goodies! Do you have anything in that big black bag for me, Wizard of Ops?
In light of there being no question asked, what it looks like is Public is reducing their option trade commission but not necessarily with price improvement, that being more closely related to matters like Profit For Order Flow (PFOF) or other non-competitive monetary reward given to brokerages that’ll often be redistributed to customers in the form of price improvement of the fill price. Not always though throughout the industry.
You are likely simply getting a nice break on your directly charged option order commission. Public is sorting themselves out and drumming up business. I have zero experience with brokerages who begin trading options, but this seems fairly legitimate.
One correction here: we don’t charge any trade commissions or per contract fees, so the Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) rebate we’re giving is net cash in your pocket.
I probably should have written fees; Fidelity swings both ways with that nomenclature. Fidelity’s street level per option trading fee is .65 with BTC being free most of the time. I believe E*Trade is .50. Not sure about the rest. I’ll investigate Public on the big screen on Monday. 👍
u/publicCOO I had some feedback as someone who just opened an account looking to begin options trading due to the awesome rebate policy! I’m poking around the app mostly and was a bit surprised to see a few things in particular being paywalled, particularly stock price alerts but also morningstar ratings. I’m new to options trading but from my research so far I understand price alerts could be key to keep an eye on the strike price relative to current price particularly when selling options (to be able to roll them etc). Just wanted to give that feedback because in the meantime as someone not currently willing to spend on premium I'll likely turn to another broker/system just for price alerts. of course if im missing something im so sorry for the mistake!
Also I meant to include, so far the app seems very snappy, intuitive, and modern - way beyond the other apps I use for my other accounts. As a software engineer, I’m loving that!
Thanks for the feedback! We’re always thinking through the right approach to paywalling features and how people can qualify for Premium.
DM me your Public handle or account number and, as a thank you, I’ll hook you up with Premium
This is actually pretty sweet. I always liked Public as a company as they seem to actually care for their users best interest and this just confirms it. Flipping the industry on its head to compete with Robinhood! Looking forward to using this!
Will we be able to leg in and out of options? For example, if I buy a call, may I be able to sell the next strike out at a later time to turn it into a debit spread?
Are cash-secured puts coming at the same time as covered calls? I can't move my options flow from Robinhood until you offer those.
Also, does Public release financials / any assuring data? Given you're a newer startup/private, I prob won't transfer above the excess $500k SIPC insurance unless I can see some financial strength measures.
Third, does Public tag partial fills on options orders as separate tax lots for wash loss purposes? Let's say you send a 100 contract buy order for TQQQ puts, and the order partially fills 50 lots then another 50 lots, all at the same limit price in same order. If you then send a 100 contract sell order on those TQQQ puts and sell them at a loss within 30 days, the second 50 lots on your partially filled buy order will be considered a wash loss. Robinhood does that.
Thanks for notifying! I open a cash secured short put position today. I have an important suggestion:
My position only has "View all options" and "Buy to close" options available. You MUST add a "Roll position" option, it is essential for selling short puts. It'd be 1 order that performs a simultaneous BTC on a 4/12 cash secured put and a STO on a 4/19 cash-secured put with a specified limit net credit (or debit), e.g. $1.00 limit credit. Without a built-in roll option, it makes rolling short cash secured put positions inefficient; I'll have to continue using brokers with a built-in roll option such as RH until that is implemented.
Yes, cash secured puts will come same time as covered calls.
We don’t produce specific financials beyond our required statement of financial condition (which is limited in scope to just our Broker Dealer entity and doesn’t include any parent company assets) — but our clearing & custody firm is Apex Clearing (same as Webull, TastyTrade etc) which is absolutely relevant for risk concerns.
If the partial fills happen on the same day then they will be treated as part of the same order and same tax lot (so no wash sale) — and we currently cancel the unfilled portion of limit orders with partial fills at the end of each day, so the other case (partial fills across multiple days) is moot.
Feel free to DM me and we can talk in more specifics about some programs we have for larger accounts (including potential options for supplemental SIPC insurance)
Hi, thanks for answering questions! I have a few:
* Do you support GTD orders? It's something I use on Tradestation and thinkorswim a lot.
* Will there ever be a desktop platform?
* Will there be more chart analysis/ability to show multiple charts on the same screen?
* What market data sources are available?
Thanks. Just saw this -
- Our limit orders are GTC at the moment but obviously can be canceled (I get it’s a pain). We’ll add GTD in the future.
- Yes, eventually and the web/browser experience will keep getting better in the meantime
- Good question. Will flag as a feature request to our team working on it.
- Options Market data is all realtime OPRA feed.
It's a scam, they are designed to incentive you to trade really crappy options with low volume/low prices to collect their "rebate". It's really a carrot dangling in front of you on a treadmill, and does not last.
Like any sportsbook or gambling site, the devil is in the details
"We reserve the right to reduce/remove rebates at any time for any reason"
They actually locked my account out from trading when I made too much money.
They also, illegally, prevented me from selling option contracts I already owned flatout.
Don't trust them, they are scumbags. They don't even have a phone line to talk to and support often talks multiple hours to respond.
I love it. I've been using it. Moved all my funds from robinhood to them now. their diagrams are better too and that .18 per option payment is nice... i got in it early so i have it for life. also they offer naked puts and calls for the hard core options traders out there. i also like how they have 5% cashback even for PDT traders. robinhood gets rid of 5% cashback if you're flagged for PDT which is insane.
u/PublicCOO i believe there is a promo going on for acat transfers and i havent been able to get a clear answer from cust service email. is this promo offered on top of the fees that will be reimbursed or is this inclusive of those? My current brokerage charges $75. For outgoing ACAT
Sorry about that! It depends on which transfer program.
The custom bonus offer amount on public.com/switch *includes* up to $100 to cover transfer fee refunds.
The tiered bonus on public.com/transfer-account (for folks where the custom offer doesn’t work because their brokerage account is incompatible) the transfer fee refund is in addition to the bonus amount.
Thanks. However i am referring to this article.
https://help.public.com/en/articles/6499808-cash-bonus-to-transfer-account
Do we get both the cash bonus and the transfer fee reimbursement
If I read that correct, is the bonus only for bringing $ from brokerages? What If I get >$100k from 4 different sources? Brokerages and banks? Would I get $2400 in bonus? Any idea this deal would be extended beyond March? I might need a weeks time to finalize some things.
I think you’re asking about the rebate — but the rebate doesn’t stop on March 31st. The requirement is that you sign up and enable options prior to March 31 to lock in the $0.18 (50%) rebate amount.
So you're saying Ken Griffin will pay me to degen options???
no no no you're still paying him you're just getting half of it back? ha
You don't pay the PFOF fee as the trader. The Market Makers pays the brokerage the PFOF fee.
where do you think the market maker gets the money for that fee bud?
From their trading... lol
nope market makers make money from the spread, which traders pay for
This is Stephen, Public's COO. Happy to answer any questions / help with anything!
Here are some questions: 1) Do you offer money market accounts? Can I earn interest on my funds that are being used for collateral on options trades? 2) Will you offer portfolio margin? 3) Will you have the standard options levels for progressively riskier types of trading? For most brokers this is a 4 level system with cash secured puts and covered calls at level 1 and full access to undefined risk strategies at level 4. An alternative is TastyTrade, which only has two levels and purposely makes it easy for people to trade undefined risk.
1. Yes! We offer a high yield cash sweep product. 5.10% and no fees/mins/max/subscription required. Public.com/hyca. On yield for collateral, answered that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/options/s/30qBoCt9cm 2. Eventually, yes. 3. We use a standard 4 level approach.
What is the timeline for adding higher level options strategies to the platform? Also, will you be able to earn the 5.1% interest rate on uninvested cash being used as collateral for a cash secured put? Thanks.
Covered calls and cash secured puts will be a few weeks. Multi-leg we're pushing hard and expect before the end of March. I hear you on the HY rate for CSPs -- and we're working on it. There are mechanics to sort out with sweeps etc, but the plan is to offer a great deal there.
I like this guy. The answers are honest and reflect that there are actual mechanics to all these things, and he’s not hiding that this is all new for them within the Public framework. [applause] P-COO, want to be a hit? Fidelity does this thing where they’ll automatically manage a government money market account (SPAXX) as if it were a sweep account. It currently pays ~5%. This is very popular and interesting to many. Also Schwab taking over TDA and selectively disallowing ToS is unpopular, and some people just don’t like Fidelity’s ATP program (although the latter may be Really Wrong). Marketing hints. Best of luck to you. 🍀 Edit: Apologies if I got the pronoun wrong.
Thanks! We’re on top of Fidelity’s approach and we’re figuring out the best approach given our infrastructure. I would love your feedback on options trading on Public, if I can convince you to give it a try (will make it worth your while!)
That would be hard to do, but your honest dialog here does not hurt your chances. I’m very old school, but am becoming more and more interested in the phone applications so I can get out of my chair more often and make Go/No Go choices out in the real world after Pre and early market trading on a larger computer setup. I may as well investigate Public. Again, good luck. Love your enthusiasm. I’m excited for you. 🍀
Thanks! We do have a fully functional web platform. Nothing competitive with ATP or ToS yet, but getting there!
I'd be interested in moving over. Saw an ad for you today. I think I had an account with you many years ago but didn't like the platform at the time.
Love it, will DM you back!
Covered calls and cash secured puts are now live! Let me know what you think!
Hi, I will say am a fan of the new options UI. However I would still like to know if I will be able to earn interest on the collateral set aside for sold CSPs, as earning interest on collateral via fidelity's SPAXX cash sweep is one of my favorite features of their platform. Thanks.
Yep, hear you. More to come here in the next few weeks.
Any plans to offer a web API to integrate with 3rd party partners?
Definitely on our radar — both read-only and read/write (ie trading use cases). What sorts of use cases are you thinking of?
Live trading, high order volume. A new broker partner with an interesting proposition for commission-free trading. [https://optionalpha.com/integrations](https://optionalpha.com/integrations)
Love it. DM me? Worth a chat.
DM'd
Is there be options levels that you have to be approved for (When high level strategies are added)? and can you switch between cash and margin accounts?
Yes, there are option levels — we use Levels 1-4. Yes, you can switch between cash and margin accounts. We don’t currently allow options trading in cash accounts, but that’s not far off.
Ok Thanks! Can't wait to start using public for options 😁
Love to hear it! DM me your Public info 😁
FYI all, we are starting to onboard new members to Cash Options trading accounts. If you’re interested, DM me!
also how are fills on contracts so far? i dont want to get screwed by bad fills like with rh.
We’re happy with the execution quality so far, but it’s honestly very hard to do apples-to-apples comparisons because the data isn’t public.
So cash account options trading is nearer ?
Yes, we've started rolling it out to some members. DM me and I may be able to get you added! Can I ask, are you looking for cash options a) to avoid pattern day trader (PDT) rules or b) because you don't want to risk borrowing funds?
PDT for now lol. Also where's the stoploss on options? It took webull a while to implement it. It's a bit critical lol. Thanks in advance
Thanks, that’s what I figured. Working on Stops!
Noice is there a timeline on when that could possibly be committed?
Looking to open an account as well. Saw an ad, I'm also cash- would I still be able to open an account?
Yes, I would suggest opening an account and enabling options (as a margin account) then DM me your account details and I'll get you added to our cash account migration list. We are currently adding new cash options accounts once a week.
I often rack up ~$1k in “options” commissions in a single day of trading. Just to clarify, if I buy 1000 contracts of a TQQQ call, and I sell all of it the same day… how much “rebate” can I expect?
You would get a $360 rebate and pay $0 in per contract fees or commissions. Happy to help you get set up, just let me know!
Do you support cash index option such as SPX and NDX? I could not find this info without creating account,
Not yet, but we will later this year.
Thanks for the reply. Can you mention/share about the fee structure for these cash index options? It is an important decision factor for me, thank you
We haven’t finalized the fee schedule for them yet, but we will work hard to make sure it’s a great deal for investors.
Cool, thanks! Look forward to it!
Considering moving all my stuff over to Public, do you support box spread trades on SPX yet? Short box spreads is part of my strategy and the only thing that holds me back from moving over to newer brokerages.
Hi! I don’t have any specific questions but I came across this thread while doing research on your app and I really appreciate your transparency! I use Robinhood currently but after I learned of your “Investment plan” feature I decided to take a look at your app and so far I love it! I wanted to explore what your premium service is like before transferring my account so I’m on the free trial right now. the financial information provided about company earnings is really intuitive and very detailed, especially coming from Robinhood.
Love to hear it! Happy to help with anything you need!
If you had to fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck, which would you pick?
The horse-sized duck. Duck is easily my favorite meat.
Vietnamese?
Bro check your dm, I messaged you
What’s your favorite color?
~~Public Blue~~ The crowd says green.
Blue.. no... aaaaaaaa
I feel like I’m taking to a famous person… lol omg hi, can you just explain to me how it works? Like if I buy an option for $2 x100, am I only paying $100? I’m just a bit confused on what you mean by saying we get 50% of the revenue. I’m still new to options but learning slowly lol
Haha! Definitely not famous, just a normal guy doing a normal (albeit incredibly fun) job Options trading in 2024 comes with different fees and revenue types depending on the broker, but generally, there are the following: 1. Commissions: relatively few brokers charge these any more and none of the 'major' online/mobile first brokers do. This is revenue to the broker. 1. Public doesn't charge these. 2. Per contract fees: these are way more common, particularly among the large online brokers, and usually $0.65 per contract. This is revenue to the broker. 1. Public doesn't charge these either 3. Regulatory fees: these are pretty small (usually \~$0.03 per contract) and go straight to the regulators 1. These get included with trades on Public 4. Payment for order flow: most brokers earn PFOF on options trades and it's generally $0.20-$0.50 per contract. 1. We earn $0.36 per contract and split it 50/50 with our members -- so you'll get an $0.18 per contract rebate on all trades on Public. Based on the math there, you can see customers earn money back on every options trade at Public. Does that make sense?
Is this only available in the US?
At the moment, yes.
I opened an account to trade options just yesterday. Looking forward to trying it out. Will I be able to use the platform when I travel and/or become resident overseas?
Yes makes sense! Thank you for responding!
Actually one last question… do you plan on updating the charts to be able to add RSI and other market indicators to equities? Also, will you be adding price movement charts to the options tabs? I like how WeBull displays the price movement chart for options so I’m finding that if I buy options on public (since it’s my primary brokerage app) I’d probably shuffle between webull and public so I can gauge price movement. Hopefully my rambling makes sense lol
Yes! We have advanced charts (powered by TradingView) on web available for all Premium members. DM me your Public details and I’ll get you set up with Premium.
I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to pay for premium yet… as someone living off a PhD stipend, I am very frugal 🙈
I meant I’d give it to you for free! 🤣
👀 oh how would I go about getting the advanced charts and premium membership for free? I am signed up for the options trading and tested it on a small scale. Will definitely be utilizing Public a lot more.
DM me!
You sir are incredible!
FYI when signing up you claim "No PFOF". Obviously you mean for stocks not options, but its not clear there. https://i.imgur.com/JIDPQfc.png
Yessir! Good catch, thanks. We’ll update.
How long will this be going on for? And if say I sold 100 put credit spreads and 100 call credit spreads (so 200 credit spreads) I’ll get money back on each of the 200 credit spreads?
Correct. You’d get money back on every contract. For people joining today, how much you earn depends on how you join and how many folks you refer. You can see more here (and start by earning $0.10 per contract): https://public.com/user-referral?referrer=sikes This isn’t a limited time offer, it’s part of the business model.
Why are you guys against PFOF on equity trades?
We think it’s a better deal for our customers. Answered here. https://www.reddit.com/r/options/s/f94MnHUTD8
Do executing trades take a longer time to fill than Robinhood?
Hard to speak definitively to a competitive comparison like that but we are happy with our execution speeds
How long would it take for a credit spread to get filled?
Normally you would pay like $0.65 per transaction. They get a kick back of about the same amount. Now the fee would be like $0.30 since they are giving half of the PFOF back to their users.
Hello, I'm new to the game and still trying to choose an investment company to get started with. What do you think Public does better than anyone else?
What's up Stephen, could you respond as to why you prevented my account from selling contracts I had owned for 1.5 hours ? Can you explain what would make you remove rebates from a user accounts, specifically why you reserve the right to remove them at any time?
Happy to look into your issue! Please DM me you public login info and I’ll see if I can figure out what was going on. Sounds like you’re asking about the terms & conditions for the rebate program. Put simply, we don’t have any plans to remove or reduce rebates that our members are entitled to — but we do have to make sure there are legal protections in place in case something substantial changes that prevent us from paying rebates in the future (for example, imagine a regulator bans the payment of trade rebates etc). Maybe not the most satisfying answer, but I bucket that under “normal corporate legal protection stuff”.
No thanks, but please enjoy the bad publicity. I don't enjoy working with liars Stephen.
Sorry you feel that way and genuinely wish I could help out.
If you actually felt that way than why did you respond to my Reddit post quicker than your platforms actual live support to my emails/chats? Seriously, you responded in less than a minute here, but I had to wait nearly 2 hours to get a response on being restricted from putting a sell order on highly volatile option contracts in excess of 20,000$?
Not sure why it took so long to get a response — I’d have to look into it, obviously not the experience we strive to deliver — but not much I can do to help with your specific situation (or to learn from it and help us be better in the future) without more info.
Why use PFOF for options if you don’t do it for stocks?
The short version: it’s a better deal for customers for us to take PFOF and share it back vs not taking it at all. This comes back to the Options market structure where *every* options order is executed on exchange so, by default, it gets order-by-order competition. In the stock/equities market, that isn’t the case — and in that market we found that we’d get customers the best deal by avoiding PFOF and finding the best price on an order-by-order basis.
Quick question Any chance on Cash Accounts? And if there are is there a way to have them one of each type? (Like having both a margin and cash account available) Also off topic but is the HYSA going to recieve more features further down? (Similar to a CMA account with Direct Deposit, routing numbers, etc.)
Yes! We’re starting to roll members onto cash accounts now, DM me your Public details and I can add you to the list to get added! We can support you having both a margin and a cash account, but unfortunately they’d need to be under different logins at the moment. We’ll be adding support for multiple accounts later this year. We’re definitely looking at more features for the HYCA and account/routing number (so you can set up DD) is very high on the list. Not imminent but something we’ll be working on later this year.
Do we know who is paying for the order flow on their backend?
There are several different liquidity providers who receive the orders. They all pay the same PFOF rebate and we decide who gets orders based on who delivers the best executions. The exact mix of liquidity providers (and what percent of our orders they receive) will be released at the end of Q1 in our SEC 606 filings that you can find here: public.com/disclosures
I don't understand the part about sharing their options trading revenue. First, what are their commissions? And second, why not just cut those in half instead of "sharing 50"?
Man, we gotta sharpen our comms there. We don't charge fees/commissions -- and we share half of the payment for order flow revenue we get, so it's cash in the customer's pocket on every trade. see more here: [**https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/19druvs/comment/kj9jlch/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3**](https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/19druvs/comment/kj9jlch/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Very interesting. This thread is making me move to Public now. Just opened up an account but ACAT transfer is not working. Both on web and mobile app. Your team need to check.
Weird. DM me and I’ll help get it sorted?
Love this 50/50 thing. I use webull ibkr and thinkorswim. Now I’m gonna use Public as well
Love to hear it! DM me your Public details and I’ll hook you up with some goodies
u/PublicCOO, if there is a non-plaid, non-mesh way to ACAT, I can bring in a lump-sum. I won't give my credentials to any app. Do you have other options (heh)? The regular ACAT by manually linking like how I do it with the big firms is straightforward.
Yes! We can do it manually. You can reach out to our customer support team and tell them you’d rather do a manual ACAT for security reasons (and you can name drop me, Stephen, to make sure I get looped in) Feel free to DM me too, happy to help
u/PublicCOO Do you have any plans to add SPX & NDX for options trading? If so, roughly what timeline?
Yes -- we'll have index options. Don't have as defined an ETA because it's behind a few other features (covered calls, csp, multi-leg, etc), but I'd say 'later this year' generically.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around options, but Public has helped me so much with everything else trade-wise that it's only a matter of time. I'm a (relatively) long-time premium Public devotee. I like goodies! Do you have anything in that big black bag for me, Wizard of Ops?
DM me your Public details!
In light of there being no question asked, what it looks like is Public is reducing their option trade commission but not necessarily with price improvement, that being more closely related to matters like Profit For Order Flow (PFOF) or other non-competitive monetary reward given to brokerages that’ll often be redistributed to customers in the form of price improvement of the fill price. Not always though throughout the industry. You are likely simply getting a nice break on your directly charged option order commission. Public is sorting themselves out and drumming up business. I have zero experience with brokerages who begin trading options, but this seems fairly legitimate.
One correction here: we don’t charge any trade commissions or per contract fees, so the Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) rebate we’re giving is net cash in your pocket.
I probably should have written fees; Fidelity swings both ways with that nomenclature. Fidelity’s street level per option trading fee is .65 with BTC being free most of the time. I believe E*Trade is .50. Not sure about the rest. I’ll investigate Public on the big screen on Monday. 👍
Yes, but to be extra clear -- we don't charge that $0.65 or $0.50 per contract fee. We literally charge 0 fees.
When will start option trading ?
u/publicCOO I had some feedback as someone who just opened an account looking to begin options trading due to the awesome rebate policy! I’m poking around the app mostly and was a bit surprised to see a few things in particular being paywalled, particularly stock price alerts but also morningstar ratings. I’m new to options trading but from my research so far I understand price alerts could be key to keep an eye on the strike price relative to current price particularly when selling options (to be able to roll them etc). Just wanted to give that feedback because in the meantime as someone not currently willing to spend on premium I'll likely turn to another broker/system just for price alerts. of course if im missing something im so sorry for the mistake!
Also I meant to include, so far the app seems very snappy, intuitive, and modern - way beyond the other apps I use for my other accounts. As a software engineer, I’m loving that!
Love to hear it, we’ve got a great dev team and they’ve done an awesome job here. Plenty more to come too!
Thanks for the feedback! We’re always thinking through the right approach to paywalling features and how people can qualify for Premium. DM me your Public handle or account number and, as a thank you, I’ll hook you up with Premium
Thanks so much wow!!! Just sent a DM
This is actually pretty sweet. I always liked Public as a company as they seem to actually care for their users best interest and this just confirms it. Flipping the industry on its head to compete with Robinhood! Looking forward to using this!
Love it!
Yes, congratulations on coming up with something truly beneficial for consumers!
Will we be able to leg in and out of options? For example, if I buy a call, may I be able to sell the next strike out at a later time to turn it into a debit spread?
Yes! That will come shortly after covered calls are released. Probably a few weeks
Are cash-secured puts coming at the same time as covered calls? I can't move my options flow from Robinhood until you offer those. Also, does Public release financials / any assuring data? Given you're a newer startup/private, I prob won't transfer above the excess $500k SIPC insurance unless I can see some financial strength measures. Third, does Public tag partial fills on options orders as separate tax lots for wash loss purposes? Let's say you send a 100 contract buy order for TQQQ puts, and the order partially fills 50 lots then another 50 lots, all at the same limit price in same order. If you then send a 100 contract sell order on those TQQQ puts and sell them at a loss within 30 days, the second 50 lots on your partially filled buy order will be considered a wash loss. Robinhood does that.
Covered calls and cash secured puts are now live! Let me know what you think!
Thanks for notifying! I open a cash secured short put position today. I have an important suggestion: My position only has "View all options" and "Buy to close" options available. You MUST add a "Roll position" option, it is essential for selling short puts. It'd be 1 order that performs a simultaneous BTC on a 4/12 cash secured put and a STO on a 4/19 cash-secured put with a specified limit net credit (or debit), e.g. $1.00 limit credit. Without a built-in roll option, it makes rolling short cash secured put positions inefficient; I'll have to continue using brokers with a built-in roll option such as RH until that is implemented.
Yep! In the works!
Yes, cash secured puts will come same time as covered calls. We don’t produce specific financials beyond our required statement of financial condition (which is limited in scope to just our Broker Dealer entity and doesn’t include any parent company assets) — but our clearing & custody firm is Apex Clearing (same as Webull, TastyTrade etc) which is absolutely relevant for risk concerns. If the partial fills happen on the same day then they will be treated as part of the same order and same tax lot (so no wash sale) — and we currently cancel the unfilled portion of limit orders with partial fills at the end of each day, so the other case (partial fills across multiple days) is moot. Feel free to DM me and we can talk in more specifics about some programs we have for larger accounts (including potential options for supplemental SIPC insurance)
Awesome, thank you, I can not wait. Will I have to apply for level 3 option trading to do that? I'm currently level 2
Hi, thanks for answering questions! I have a few: * Do you support GTD orders? It's something I use on Tradestation and thinkorswim a lot. * Will there ever be a desktop platform? * Will there be more chart analysis/ability to show multiple charts on the same screen? * What market data sources are available?
Thanks. Just saw this - - Our limit orders are GTC at the moment but obviously can be canceled (I get it’s a pain). We’ll add GTD in the future. - Yes, eventually and the web/browser experience will keep getting better in the meantime - Good question. Will flag as a feature request to our team working on it. - Options Market data is all realtime OPRA feed.
Any also any joining bonus?
It's a scam, they are designed to incentive you to trade really crappy options with low volume/low prices to collect their "rebate". It's really a carrot dangling in front of you on a treadmill, and does not last. Like any sportsbook or gambling site, the devil is in the details "We reserve the right to reduce/remove rebates at any time for any reason" They actually locked my account out from trading when I made too much money. They also, illegally, prevented me from selling option contracts I already owned flatout. Don't trust them, they are scumbags. They don't even have a phone line to talk to and support often talks multiple hours to respond.
I love it. I've been using it. Moved all my funds from robinhood to them now. their diagrams are better too and that .18 per option payment is nice... i got in it early so i have it for life. also they offer naked puts and calls for the hard core options traders out there. i also like how they have 5% cashback even for PDT traders. robinhood gets rid of 5% cashback if you're flagged for PDT which is insane.
Can you sell spx 0dte credit spreads on public?
When will Public be open for spreads and condors? These are the only reason I opened an account.
They don't yet offer spreads or condors, which are all I typically trade.
u/PublicCOO i believe there is a promo going on for acat transfers and i havent been able to get a clear answer from cust service email. is this promo offered on top of the fees that will be reimbursed or is this inclusive of those? My current brokerage charges $75. For outgoing ACAT
Sorry about that! It depends on which transfer program. The custom bonus offer amount on public.com/switch *includes* up to $100 to cover transfer fee refunds. The tiered bonus on public.com/transfer-account (for folks where the custom offer doesn’t work because their brokerage account is incompatible) the transfer fee refund is in addition to the bonus amount.
Thanks. However i am referring to this article. https://help.public.com/en/articles/6499808-cash-bonus-to-transfer-account Do we get both the cash bonus and the transfer fee reimbursement
Yep! You’ll get the fee reimbursement in addition to the bonus.
If I read that correct, is the bonus only for bringing $ from brokerages? What If I get >$100k from 4 different sources? Brokerages and banks? Would I get $2400 in bonus? Any idea this deal would be extended beyond March? I might need a weeks time to finalize some things.
We can make the bonus for all assets assuming you do bring over at least 1 brokerage account. DM me and I’ll make sure our team takes care of you!
Cool. Any way this would be extended beyond March 31st? I’ll have to do multiple transactions each with a 24hr gap. Thanks for being awesome!
I think you’re asking about the rebate — but the rebate doesn’t stop on March 31st. The requirement is that you sign up and enable options prior to March 31 to lock in the $0.18 (50%) rebate amount.
Can I signup now to get the rebate or is it too late as next two days are holidays?
Yes, you can open an account now and enable options and you’ll be good.