Robinhood capitalizes on strong crypto interest in first earnings report, but stock stumbles
Robinhood Markets Inc. benefited from strong interest in cryptocurrencies in its first earnings report as a public company, though the company continued to warn that the September quarter was unlikely to match the June quarter’s record levels of activity.
The company posted a second-quarter net loss of $502 million, or $2.16 a share, whereas it recorded a profit of $58 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Robinhood HOOD,
Robinhood had detailed in a July filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expected a loss of $487 million to $537 million for the quarter.
Revenue for the June quarter rose to $565 million from $244 million. Revenue from cryptocurrency transactions accounted for $233 million, up from just $5 million in the prior June quarter.
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The company had said to expect $546 million to $574 million in total revenue for the period in its July SEC filing. FactSet didn’t list enough analyst estimates to form a solid consensus view on earnings or revenue expectations.
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The company had 22.5 million net cumulative funded accounts in the June quarter and it had 21.3 million monthly active users. Robinhood had $102 billion in assets under custody, up from $33.4 billion a year prior.
“We’re encouraged by the number of people who are accessing the financial system for the first time through Robinhood,” Chief Executive Vlad Tenev said in the earnings release.
The company reiterated a warning from the filing, noting that it expects revenue for the September quarter to be lower than what was seen in the June quarter. The company expects “seasonal headwinds and lower trading activity across the industry to result in lower revenues and considerably fewer new funded accounts than in the prior quarter,” it said in its release.
Robinhood pointed to strong interest in its IPO Access feature, which lets retail traders invest in companies at their IPO prices.
“Customers that have been participating in these IPOs have been relatively diamond handed, so to speak,” Tenev said on the earnings call. “They’ve been holding on to these stocks for over 30 days and haven’t been flipping them, so I think that addresses a misconception that a lot of folks have had about retail in IPOs.”
Tenev continued that he was “optimistic that more and more new issuers will view Robinhood as a way to better align themselves with their retail shareholders.”
