Shares of brokerage firm Robinhood closed up more than 11% higher Thursday.
While the biggest news of the day directly impacting the company was the Treasury Department announcement that its Trump Account app —designed in partnership with Robinhood—is now available, other factors are likely at play.
The jump is “likely a combination of both Trump accounts excitement, the agentic trading news from yesterday as well as hopes of peace in the Middle East,” Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev told Barron’s.
On Wednesday, Robinhood said it would let customers connect their artificial intelligence agents to Robinhood accounts to place trades and make credit-card purchases on their behalf. The news caused Robinhood shares to rise nearly 3% that day.
As for the Trump accounts, which are aimed at kick-starting savings for young people, nearly six million families have signed up for them. That’s up from 5 million announced on tax day. While people have been able to sign up since February using a special form they could file with their taxes, the accounts don’t officially launch or activate until July 4.
The Treasury department previously announced in April that Bank of New York Mellon would serve as the government’s financial agent to implement the accounts and that Robinhood would be the brokerage and initial trustee for the Trump Accounts. BNY shares rose less than 1% Thursday.
Robinhood previously said that its work on the accounts was “contracted on a cost plus basis with a small margin,” which it didn’t specify. It added that in addition to its initial costs of less than $14 million to develop the app, it planned to invest another $100 million to “build and support the user interface” for it.
Robinhood shares closed up 11% at $84.84 on Thursday. They are still down 25% for the year due to a drop in cryptocurrency trading revenue as lower prices for cryptocurrencies have slowed those trades. When it reported earnings in April, the brokerage firm said its crypto trading revenue had fallen 47% to $134 million.
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