Robinhood launches platform to go after bigger, more active traders

cnbc.com:

In this article

Retail brokerage firm Robinhood is launching a new tool for more sophisticated traders as it looks for additional avenues for growth.

The firm introduced Robinhood Legend, a desktop-based platform for active traders. The offering includes advanced charting tools for users who want to do detailed analysis of stocks.

«In looking at the landscape of trading tools and by talking with active traders, we realized there is frustration with legacy offerings,» Steve Quirk, chief brokerage officer at Robinhood, said in a press release.

«Specifically, moving back and forth between apps or charting platforms can be cumbersome and time consuming. So we set out to reimagine what a modern, intuitively designed active trading platform should look like, and built Robinhood Legend from the ground up so traders can do what they need in one place,» Quirk said.

Beyond the launch of Legend, Robinhood also said it will soon add futures trading and index options to its mobile platform. Customers must be granted approval to trade futures contracts, according to the press release, and futures and index options will eventually be added to Legend as well.

The new additions for Robinhood are another example of the firm looking to expand beyond its roots as a convenient platform for small-dollar traders. The firm's rise coincided with the «meme stock» phenomenon in early 2021 as retail trading boomed in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then, Robinhood has been steadily adding new offerings, including a credit card for Robinhood Gold subscribers and a digital wallet to hold cryptocurrencies.

«We've done very well on mobile historically among younger people and folks that primarily invest and trade on mobile. But about half