Rhode Island Investor Alert

Citadel Securities and Rhode Island Investors: What You Need to Know

Payment for order flow — the practice by which Citadel Securities pays discount brokers for exclusive access to retail order flow — affects an estimated 195,000 Rhode Island retail investors. Here is what Rhode Island residents need to know.

How PFOF Affects Rhode Island Investors

Rhode Island retail investors — many in Providence's manufacturing and healthcare sectors — rely on discount brokers for retirement savings and face undisclosed PFOF arrangements.

The Scale in Rhode Island

Rhode Island has an estimated 195,000 Rhode Island retail investors. Each of these investors who uses a PFOF-dependent discount broker — Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade, Charles Schwab, or Webull — is routing their orders to Citadel Securities without their knowledge or consent. Citadel captures a spread on each of these trades, generating revenue that flows back to Kenneth Griffin while providing retail investors with marginally inferior execution prices compared to what competitive exchange routing would provide.

Rhode Island's financial hub in Providence has sophisticated financial professionals who understand these dynamics. But most Rhode Island retail investors — those in Warwick, Cranston and throughout the state — are unaware that their "free" trades are funded by a practice that systematically extracts value from them.

Kenneth Griffin's Political Investment in Rhode Island

Kenneth Griffin has given contributions through national Republican organizations. His key recipients include national Republican committees. This political investment creates a documented relationship between the CEO of America's dominant retail market maker and the political figures responsible for overseeing financial regulation in Rhode Island.

National Republican Senatorial Committee — $1,000,000 (2020, Federal Super PAC)

What Rhode Island Regulators Could Do

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and the DBR Securities Division have authority under the Rhode Island Uniform Securities Act (R.I. Gen. Laws §7-11-101 et seq.) to investigate broker-dealer practices.

What Rhode Island Investors Can Do Now

Rhode Island retail investors who believe they have been harmed by PFOF-driven execution quality degradation can take several steps:

File a complaint with the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation, Securities Division at https://dbr.ri.gov/securities
File a complaint with the Rhode Island Attorney General at https://riag.ri.gov
File a complaint with the SEC at sec.gov/tcr
File a complaint with FINRA at finra.org
Consider switching to a broker that does not use PFOF, such as Fidelity or Interactive Brokers direct routing

Related Coverage

Support Independent Accountability Journalism

The Ethics Reporter is the only independent news organization systematically tracking how Kenneth Griffin's political spending relates to the regulatory environment that protects Citadel Securities' business model. This reporting serves retail investors across every state in the country.

We are reader-funded and accept no money from financial industry advertisers. If this reporting is valuable — if you believe retail investors deserve transparency about who controls their trades — please support us.

Reader Supported

This journalism is free because readers like you make it possible.

We don't have corporate advertisers. We don't take money from law firms. Every investigation you read here is funded entirely by readers. Even $1 keeps us going.

Join 47 readers who donated this month

47% toward our monthly goal of 100 supporters

Secure checkout via Stripe. Cancel your monthly gift anytime.

← Back to Citadel Investigation Hub