Robinhood Shares Plunge Amid Gloomy Revenue Outlook Just One Year After Meme Stock Mania

Topline

Shares of popular stock trading app Robinhood tumbled nearly 10% after the company reported fourth quarter earnings that failed to impress investors, while also issuing a grim revenue forecast for the start of 2022 as trading activity continues to slow down.

Robinhood has lost more than two-thirds of its value since its July 2021 IPO.

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Robinhood’s stock, which fell nearly 7% to around $11 per share on Thursday, plunged another 8% in after hours trading following the company’s quarterly earnings report.

The popular stock trading app reported earnings which came in slightly below Wall Street expectations: For the fourth quarter, revenue fell slightly from $365 million to $363 million, while Robinhood’s loss of 49 cents per share was wider than the 45 cent loss expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

The trading platform’s total number of accounts grew from 22.4 million last quarter to 22.7 million by the end of 2021—though monthly active users fell to 17.3 million from 18.9 million in the previous quarter.

What particularly spooked investors, however, was Robinhood’s gloomy revenue forecast for the next quarter: The company anticipates revenue of less than $340 million—significantly less than the nearly $450 million expected by analysts, according to FactSet.

Transaction based revenues on Robinhood’s platform fell slightly to $264 million in the fourth quarter, with revenue from cryptocurrency trading accounting for just $48 million of that figure and down slightly from $51 million last quarter.

As of Thursday’s close, the stock is down more than 70% off its initial public offering price in July 2021, with shares falling more than 30% alone this month.

Big Number: $22 Billion.

That’s how much Robinhood has lost in market value since going public at a $32 billion valuation in July 2021. After recent stock struggles, the company now has a market capitalization of just $10 billion.

Surprising Fact:

With Robinhood shares at a new record low, cofounders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt both have both lost their billionaire status, according to Forbes. The pair first became billionaires in September 2020 after a private funding round valued Robinhood at $11.7 billion, by Forbes’ calculations.

Crucial Quote:

“Robinhood’s awful results highlight the several challenges the trading platform company currently faces, mainly a slowdown in user growth, as well as weaker retail trading activity in stocks and crypto,” according to Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com. “With a current valuation of roughly $10 billion, Robinhood’s market cap still seems high… they haven’t done a good job of justifying its sky-high valuation and the market has punished the stock accordingly.”

Key Background:

Shares of Robinhood have fallen nearly 40%—to less than $15 per share—so far in 2022, continuing a downward trend in recent months. After a blockbuster start to last year—when a wild rally in meme stocks like GameStop and cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin helped spur massive growth for Robinhood, trading activity and account growth has substantially settled down. Robinhood’s stock plunged 10% after reporting lackluster earnings in October, in which the company warned that lower retail trading activity “may persist” into the end of 2021. The popular stock trading app had reported a steep revenue drop in quarterly revenue—from $565 million to $365 million, in large part due to a sharp decline in revenue from crypto trading on Robinhood’s platform.