Robinhood built its business on helping millions of American investors lift stocks “to the moon”, a phrase adopted by those seeking to drive up share prices of favoured “meme-stocks”. But as the US brokerage sold its own shares to the public for the first time on Thursday, the favour was not returned as many ignored the call to buy and some even relished the slide in its shares.
In its few short years Robinhood has revitalised a type of day trading last seen in the dotcom boom, and subsequent bust, more than two decades ago. Investors on its app have sent stocks like Tesla and cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin to all-time highs, and brought conversations about financial markets back to dinner tables across the US.
Its pitch to investors has become marketing folklore: everyone should have access to the US stock market, not simply moneyed institutions on Wall Street. For a moment this year the populist narrative almost held, as newly minted online traders helped send shares of GameStop rallying to the detriment of a prominent hedge fund. Its user base swelled to 31m and it now counts 22.5m funded accounts.