This photo illustration shows the Robinhood Markets, Inc. logo. displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Retail brokerage company Robinhood is launching a new tool for more advanced traders as it looks for additional opportunities for growth.
The company introduced Robinhood Legend, a desktop-based platform for active traders. The offering includes advanced charting tools for users who want to perform detailed analysis of stocks.
“As we looked at the trading instrument landscape and spoke to active traders, we realized there is frustration with existing offerings,” said Steve Quirk, Chief Brokerage Officer at Robinhood, in a press release.
“Specifically, switching back and forth between apps or charting platforms can be cumbersome and time-consuming. That's why we wanted to reimagine what a modern, intuitively designed active trading platform should look like, and built Robinhood Legend from the ground up so that traders that they can do what they need in one place,” Quirk said.
In addition to Legend's launch, Robinhood also said it will soon add futures trading and index options to its mobile platform. Customers must be allowed to trade futures contracts, the press release said, and futures and index options will also eventually be added to Legend.
The new additions to Robinhood are another example of the company looking to expand beyond its roots as a convenient platform for small-dollar traders. The company's rise coincided with the “meme stock” phenomenon in early 2021, as retail sales boomed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Robinhood Stocks, All Time
Since then, Robinhood has steadily added new offerings, including a credit card for Robinhood Gold subscribers and a digital wallet for cryptocurrencies.
“We've historically done very well on mobile among younger people and people who invest and trade primarily on mobile. But about half of the market is on desktop web, where you have more real estate on the screen and more advanced stuff like charts and data in the same interface. And so we weren't really a player in that space,” Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev said on CNBC's 'Squawk Box.
Robinhood said it had $139.7 billion in assets under custody at the end of the second quarter, along with 11.8 million monthly active users. For the comparable quarter in 2021, near the height of GameStop mania, Robinhood reported $102 billion in assets but 21.3 million monthly active users. The company's next earnings report is scheduled for October 30.
Robinhood shares are up more than 100% so far this year.
The announcements on Thursday were part of HOOD Summit, a conference for Robinhood's customers.