By Nate Wolf
Robinhood Markets stock fell Friday as the brokerage's trading data for February revealed a deep decline in volume last month and sizable losses for investors.
The platform gained around 140,000 users in February, but average daily trading volume for equities fell 11% from January to $10.2 billion. Trading of options contracts and event contracts -- Robinhood's relatively new prediction-market business -- also dropped. Cryptocurrency trading was a bright spot in February as daily volumes jumped 21% from January to $893 million.
Investors on the platform appeared to underperform the broader market. Despite $5.6 billion in net deposits in February, total assets on the platform, which include stocks, cash and other instruments, fell by $10.2 billion. That implies a 4.9% loss on the assets traders owned entering February, compared to a 0.9% dip for the S&P 500.
The company didn't immediately respond to Barron's requests for comment on customers' returns. It released monthly data last week showing traders were heavily invested in large-cap tech names.
Robinhood stock was down 3.8% to $73.23 on Friday. Shares often move in tandem with Bitcoin, but the pair diverged Friday, with Bitcoin jumping 1.5% over the past 24 hours.
Softer retail trading volumes could be a concern for investors since transaction-based revenue makes up the majority of Robinhood's business. The crypto data were encouraging, though, according to Mizuho Securities analyst Dan Dolev.
Crypto and options trading account for a much greater proportion of Robinhood's total revenue than equities trading, despite the latter being its highest-volume business.
Mizuho lifted its first-quarter revenue projection for Robinhood by 1% on stronger-than-expected crypto volumes in a research note Friday and reiterated an Outperform rating. Still, the firm dropped its price target to $110 from $135 "to reflect the softer retail trading backdrop."
Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 13, 2026 12:31 ET (16:31 GMT)
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