Does a broker have a legal obligation to allow you to purchase any stock? I am genuinely asking as IANAL. I can't go into an Apple Store and demand they sell me a Google Pixel. It seems like these places should have every right to choose what services they offer or products they sell.

I wouldn't do business with Robinhood for a number of reasons that go back before this recent spat of issues, I am just not sure preventing purchasing GME is the worst aspect of this.

Are they entitled to prevent people from buying the shares you hold? If people can't buy them, this obviously causes the price to fall. They are making the price of what you hold fall...they deserve to be sued good and hard for this.

>Are they entitled to prevent people from buying the shares you hold?

So if I am long on a stock that gets delisted from an exchange, can I sue that exchange because they are making it more difficult for people to buy that stock?

How is this related at all to the broker question? Exchanges and brokers are completely different concepts.

Because the logic that comment used for a lawsuit was as follows:

>They are making the price of what you hold fall...they deserve to be sued good and hard for this.

That logic applies to a number of entities and not just brokers. If I can sue a broker for this reason, can I sue anyone for that reason?

That’s not how laws work. Just because you personally see a way it can be philosophically generalized or conceptually generalized does not mean laws apply the same to all generalizations. Brokers, exchanges, investment firms, banks, etc., all have specific legal obligations based on different types of fiduciary duty, different service offerings, etc. It can easily be the case that an exchange entity has a legal ability to deny access through delisting while a broker entity does not have the right to deny service in some particular scenario.

I am not saying what the case is for brokers today, but regardless, appealing to some notion of proof by contradiction because of generalizing a behavior is not a valid way to analyze the situation.

>It can easily be the case that an exchange entity has a legal ability to deny access through delisting while a broker entity does not have the right to deny service in some particular scenario.

I realize that. That previously quoted answer was in response to me asking "Does a broker have a legal obligation to allow you to purchase any stock?" Someone answered that with a broad response without referring to any laws. I'm not sure how that leaves me with a responsibility to do a full legal breakdown of the issue.

If your over-arching point is the legal system won't side with the RH users, I'm fine with that premise because I think "laws" are a meme, and the same powerful institutions screwing over the traders who went against them are the same ones who not only influence how laws are written but also enforced.

I thought you were saying in principle their was no basis for users to feel wronged by RH. But this is silly, because you and I both know without a shadow of a doubt that RH shut down buys to protect the underwater hedge funds. It's obvious to anyone with a brain. And I'm confident it's obvious to you. And would be obvious to any judge, jury or lawyer. But does it matter that its true? No. Is there some legal basis that would encompass "you can't shut down trading to protect some hedge fund that you are connected with". I'm certain there is, but it probably won't matter. Because "the law" and "rule of law" is a meme. Power is what matters. And the sovereign power decides what the law is... average joe traders don't have the power and hedge funds and finance in this case do.

I wouldn't have used that exact phrasing, but yeah that is my general premise. "It is obvious" is an argument that might work on Reddit, Discord, Twitter, or HN, but there needs to be some bigger connection for the law to act rather than they did something shady that benefitted someone they have a connection with and that shouldn't be allowed.

It is similar to a lot of the complaints in the wake of 2008. You can't just lock people up for seemingly unethical behavior. You need to find evidence that specific laws were broken. If no laws were broke we need to move on and create new laws to prevent it the next time.

"Does a broker have a legal obligation to allow you to purchase any stock?"

No, I have seen all sorts of seemingly arbitrary restrictions since I started investing (back in college), on everything from mutual funds to ETPs to penny stocks.

Framed another way, can a broker prevent the purchase or sale of stock to bias the asset's movement in a particular direction to benefit themselves or a friendly third party?

Of course not. This is any number of SEC violations

What kind of strawman is that? They let you buy GME until yesterday. Stop being intellectually dishonest.