Robinhood trading volume keeps snowballing, even amid controversy

Feb. 08, 2021 11:56 AM ETGameStop Corp. (GME), IBKR, SCHW, HOODHOOD, GME, AMC, IBKR, SCHWBy: Kim Khan, SA News Editor44 Comments
  • Robinhood's (RBNHD) trading in equities and options spiked to a level more than double its previous peaks this year in the retail frenzy for stocks like GameStop (NYSE:GME) -6% and AMC (NYSE:AMC) -12%.
  • In a blog last week that further described how Robinhood dealt with a the logistical and market challenges of the squeeze, the company provided a chart through the last week of January tracking that volume growth.

  • "To say the overnight increases in volume Robinhood experienced ... were extraordinarily high would be a vast understatement," President and COO Jim Swartout wrote.
  • The January move made the spike in volume after the COVID March 2020 selloff, where its "customers, many of whom are young and have long-term financial horizons, saw this as an opportunity," look like "a blip."
  • Robinhood hasn't disclosed its daily average revenue trades (DARTs) figures since August, when it reported 4.3M for June.
  • Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR) recently reported January DARTs up a whopping 223%. Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) reported Q4 DARTs up nearly 300% compared with Q3.
  • Daily unique users for Robinhood have tripled since the start of the year, while traffic surged 1,200% for the week ended Jan. 29, Bloomberg reported, citing data from SimilarWeb.
  • The House Financial Services Committee is holding a hearing on market volatility on Feb. 18.
  • Goldman Sachs says broker order flow will be discussed, among a host of other topics.
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