CEO Vlad Tenev called tokenization the industry’s “biggest innovation” of the last decade.
The trading platform, which caters to retail investors, in its latest quarter benefitted from a return of speculative investing and meme-stock mania, with a jump in transaction-based revenue across categories. Year-over-year gains were driven by higher trading in options, crypto, as well as stocks.
Robinhood’s second-quarter earnings materially exceeded expectations. Its reported diluted earnings per share of $0.42, doubling year-over-year. Revenue came in at $989 million. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expected $0.30 in diluted EPS and $920 million in revenue.
Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick said on a conference call that the trading platform had a strong start to the third quarter, with July equity and options trading volumes setting monthly records. Crypto volumes at both Robinhood and its European crypto exchange Bitstamp are at six-month highs, he said.
The stock was relatively quiet in after-hours trading, recently rising about 1% after climbing a bit less than 3% in the regular session. The stock has been on an upward tear this year as it leaned into its crypto business and rolled out new products including blockchain-based stock tokens in Europe and staking for ethereum (ETHUSD) and solana (SOLUSD); the shares are up almost 170% year-to-date.
CEO Vlad Tenev in a statement said Robinhood’s “relentless product velocity” drove its strong second-quarter results and said tokenization was “the biggest innovation” the industry has seen in years.
The company stands to benefit from relaxed day-trading rules if the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority heeds the brokerage’s comments that guidelines were more harmful than helpful to investors, and a troublesome source of customer complaints.
Robinhood raised its full-year outlook for adjusted operating expenses slightly to account for its acquisition of Bitstamp, which closed in the second quarter.
