Robinhood’s Market Debut Today was Robinhood’s IPO, the day w | Business Finance News USA Edition

Robinhood’s Market Debut

Today was Robinhood’s IPO, the day we’ve all been waiting for… and it was one of the worst IPOs of 2021. The stock plunged from its offering price of $38.

$HOOD’s unfortunate debut has made for juicy gossip, but it’s hardly a surprise. After all, the company’s role in halting shares of GameStop and other securities during January’s Memestock Madness made it a villain among retail investors.

That hasn’t stopped Robinhood though, which now boasts over 18M users. It’s an astonishing figure when weighed against broker giants Fidelity and Schwab, competitors that have existed far longer than the eight-year-old broker-dealer. Robinhood also reserved 35% of its shares for its 18M users, if they wanted them. But it looks like they didn’t.

Robinhood generates revenue through a controversial practice called Payment for Order Flow (PFOF). PFOF helped power commission-free trading, but the practice could suffer regulatory blows in the near future as reviews of the broker-dealer industry continue.

$HOOD fell 8.3% today to close at $34.82. That price values the company at around $29B.