Robinhood Extends Its Trading Hours

Attention sweatpants-wearing, meme stock-chasing, amateur retail traders everywhere: Your hours of operation (and, we must add, your availability to receive scary margin calls) are about to expand.

On Tuesday, Robinhood announced it is adding four hours of extended trading for its users as it slowly moves to offering 24/7 trading.

These Are the People in Your Robinhood

Amid meme stock mania and the bitcoin blitz, Robinhood soared to a blockbuster 2021 on the backs of millions of new users. Its revenue jumped nearly 90% to $1.82 billion last year, it announced in an earnings report in January, while its user base increased from 12.5 million to nearly 23 million. But then a not-so-surprising thing happened for the day trading app: Much of its clientele had day jobs and social lives and family matters to attend to. Growth fell off, with Q4 revenue tied to stock trading dropping 35% YoY.

“Our customers often tell us they’re working or preoccupied during regular market hours, limiting their ability to invest on their own schedule or evaluate and react to important market news,” the company explained in a blog post announcing the news. With extended hours, Robinhood hopes to meet its users where they are (presumably on the couch, after work, surfing Reddit for hot tips and new cryptocurrencies):

• The app is extending its pre-market trading hours to 7 a.m. ET and its after-hours trading availability to 8 p.m. Previously, its extended hours lasted from only a half-hour before open and two hours after close, or from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• The move brings it in line with many chief rivals. Fidelity and Interactive Brokers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for most basic accounts, although Charles Schwab is open virtually 24/7.

Robinhood’s stock jumped nearly 20% following the announcement, but even the wave of excited investors isn’t enough to pull the company out of the red for the year.