Apple was prepping a new iPhone feature that would let users buy and sell stocks in partnership with Goldman Sachs, but Apple decided the timing wasn’t right as markets slumped and put the plan on pause, status unknown, CNBC reports citing “three sources familiar with the plans.”
Kate Rooney and Hugh Son for CNBC:
Apple was working on the investing feature at a time of zero interest rates during Covid, when consumers were stuck at home and spending more of their time and their record savings in trading shares, including meme stocks like GameStop and AMC, from their smartphones.
Apple’s conversations with Goldman began during that hype cycle in 2020, two sources said. Their work progressed, and an Apple investing feature was meant to roll out in 2022. One hypothetical use case pitched by executives involved the ability for iPhone users with extra cash to put money into Apple shares, one person said.
But as markets were roiled by higher rates and soaring inflation, the Apple team feared user backlash if people lost money in the stock market with the assistance of an Apple product, the sources said. That’s when the iPhone maker and Goldman switched directions and pushed the plan to launch savings accounts, which benefit from higher rates.
The status of the stock-trading project is unclear after Goldman CEO David Solomon bowed to internal and external pressure and decided to retrench from nearly all of the bank’s consumer efforts. One source said the infrastructure for an investing feature is mostly built and ready to go should Apple eventually decide to move forward with it.
MacDailyNews Take: This would be built right into Apple’s Stocks app, we assume, and work not just on iPhone, but also iPad, Mac, and maybe even Apple Watch (Apple’s Stocks app currently exists for all four platforms). If Apple moves forward, it’ll be bad news for Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, etc.
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I always try to buy during pullbacks but I understand that for general population its more convinient to enter when its green or when the market will rally once Trump is re-elected.
Before they deploy this to an WATCH they should ensure the Stocks app on the watch is capable of returning the actual price of an equity in real (or near real) time and display that properly in a complication.
Trades on Robinhood are free. Is Apple planning on matching that, or will they charge a fee of $6.95 per trade, similar to Schwab?
Not free. They sell users action data to its customers (market makers)
I have been with TD Ameritrade for a long time. Now that Schwab took bought them, it sucks. The Schwab app is terrible compared to TD’s app. If Apple did this, I would jump ship in a minute.
Schwab charging a trading fee is very much stuck in last decade. E-trade = free. I can’t imagine Apple would charge per trade…should this plan materialize.
With a number of spot BTC ETFs queued up for approval, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s offering–should it emerge–would include some crypto assets.
Me too. I really liked TD Ameritrade.
Just for daily laughs, read the threads on Wall Street Bets. What are those guys thinking?
Apple; please make priority to fix, or return the Weather app to its previous state before attending to a stock trading app. People are upset, as they are tired of a MS/dos-like look that used to delight.
Apparently plans for the Robinhood-like trading platform for the iPhone have been scrapped.