Venmo, Robinhood, SoFi — Meet the Guy Who Glues Them Together
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Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev Builds Apocalypse Squad — 150 Top Performers Picked To Rebuild Company If Disaster Strikes
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev has established an exclusive founders club comprising the company's 150 best-performing employees across all levels, designed to serve as a strategic rebuild team in catastrophic scenarios. Elite Performance Community Speaking on the 'Cheeky Pint' podcast published on Wednesday, Tenev revealed the secretive group's purpose. 'If there was a disaster or some kind of apocalyptic scenario, and we had to rebuild Robinhood with 150 people, you would be in that group,' he told inductees. The community initially focused on compensation for top performers but evolved into an 'actual community' that provides strategic input. Tenev conducts regular strategy sessions, city-based events, and dinners with members. Trending: The same firms that backed Uber, Venmo and eBay are investing in this pre-IPO company disrupting a $1.8T market — Cross-Level Impact Focus Unlike traditional executive circles, the founders club spans organizational levels. 'I didn't want the group to become 150 people at the top of the org chart,' Tenev said, emphasizing inclusion of high-impact contributors regardless of position. The trading platform, which went public in 2021, employs 2,300 full-time staff as of December. Tenev confirmed the company 'very much' concentrates promotions within top performers and rewards exceptional employees well. Strong Platform Metrics Drive Growth Recent July metrics underscore Robinhood's momentum. Total platform assets reached $298 billion, up 106% year-over-year. Funded customers hit 26.7 million, adding 160,000 from June. Crypto trading volumes surged 217% annually to $16.8 billion, while equity volumes doubled year-over-year to $209.1 billion. Read Next: 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. You can invest today for just $0.30/share. If there was a new fund backed by Jeff Bezos offering a 7-9% target yield with monthly dividends would you invest in it? Photo courtesy: Ink Drop / Shutterstock This article Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev Builds Apocalypse Squad — 150 Top Performers Picked To Rebuild Company If Disaster Strikes originally appeared on
Miami Herald
19 hours ago
- Miami Herald
After Circle and Bullish's big debuts, it's time to put these three crypto IPOs on your radar
Whether or not you think crypto is a pivotal technology or generational scam, there's no arguing that there's money to be made off of it. But despite the improbable returns and all-time highs in leading digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, there might arguably be even better money for investors buying companies selling access to the boom. See, there's an old adage about selling pickaxes to gold miners. And arguably, nobody's done it better than Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN) . The two industry leaders spent years in the dumps after their respective 2021 IPOs, but with the years-long recession of trading speculation in the rear view, the two companies have soared. They're up 475% and 62% over the last year. Their performances have created a lot of FOMO among crypto and fintech operators. And thanks to a slew of new pro-crypto policies from the Republican-run U.S. government, and record valuations in digital asset land, there's a new boom of firms seeking out Wall Street. It's already created some of the year's most fantastical rallies. Take USDC creator Circle Technology (CRCL) for example, it's up over 400% since its IPO. It's not a one-off thing, either: crypto exchange and media firm Bullish BLSH, which IPOed this past week, proved the demand for crypto IPOs is durable; it's nearly doubled from its IPO price. So who should be on your radar next? Here are three to watch out for: If not for Grayscale, the largest digital asset manager, we might have been waiting years for Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to become reality. The company was a first-mover in bringing crypto to Wall Street through its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale Ethereum Trust. The funds, plus dozens of other products offered by the asset manager, offered spot exposure to the digital assets long before major asset managers paid any mind to the crypto industry. Next on its list, it plans to take itself to Wall Street, capitalizing on the robust drip of management fees from its various crypto products. It manages over $33 billion in assets. In mid-July, it was reported that the firm had confidentially filed for an IPO. They might not have invented Facebook, but settlement money in hand, the Winklevoss twins have managed to build a billion-dollar business in the burgeoning crypto business. After buying millions in Bitcoin and attempting to bring a 'Winklevoss Bitcoin Fund' to Wall Street over a decade ago, the twins settled for building their own crypto exchange. Today, Gemini has grown to be one of the larger centralized exchanges. As a result, it's seeking to strike while crypto demand is strong. In fact, it was one of the first firms to throw its hat in the ring, in light of the strong performance seen by Circle. Last it raised money from venture capital investors in Nov. 2021, crypto was at all-time highs. Filing confidentially for an IPO, the company would likely seek a valuation around the $7.1 billion it fetched back then. Crypto custodian BitGo has also joined the chorus of crypto firms seeking a home on Wall Street. It might score big, given the fact that it's already a massive home for crypto assets. BitGo custodies over $100 billion in assets now, making it one of the largest holders of crypto. It provides services directly to exchanges, asset managers, and other businesses. Not just holding and securing coins, but staking them and providing trading, lending, and borrowing services as a prime broker. It's fair to assume that the firm's near-doubling in assets over the last year is an indication it's ready for prime time, but outside of the $1.75 billion valuation it fetched in Aug. 2023, we won't know a whole lot more until the company's confidential IPO becomes public. It's hard to call anything a sure thing these days, particularly with U.S. stock benchmarks and crypto markets at record levels. For those interested in playing the IPOs, there's likely an opportunity to hop in on the ground floor of the new listings, playing the first-day pop and ensuing optimism. Some brokerages, like Robinhood and SoFi, even allow investors to request shares at the IPO price. For longer-term holders, closer examination of the companies' financials will be a must. Most of that information is not public yet, though. To that end, if you're a crypto believer, a bet on these firms might make sense if they're financially strong and growing. But given the nature of this fickle market, that means betting that the crypto market's best days are still ahead. And that's by no means a sure thing. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
4 trends among retail investors according to Robinhood's CIO
Institutional investors are feeling more bullish, but where does overall retail investor sentiment sit? Robinhood's (HOOD) chief investment officer, Stephanie Guild, joins Market Domination to share some of the key trends she's noticed among retail traders, including Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) being the most common stocks traded by bears and bulls alike. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination. Bank of America is out with its most bullish fund manager survey since February with lower probabilities of a hard landing and equity allocations on the rise. That survey records how institutional investors are feeling, but we want to talk about retail traders and how they're feeling in the stock market today. So with me is Steph Guilds, Robin Hood Chief Investment Officer. So Steph, when you look at some trends that on the Robin Hood platform, what sticks out to you? What are you noticing? Uh, a couple things. One is, Tesla and Nvidia continue to be like the most popularly traded, no matter no matter what side. Um, more recently we've been seeing, um, a trend of, I don't want to say it's meme stocks, but you know, the the theme of the dorks that came out of, you know, a few weeks ago, like Open Door, for example, that started being something that we we saw a rise in popularity on our platform. Um, but overarching all that continues to be the that our customers really do kind of create take core positions and then trade around the volatility. So what that has meant is, um, Eli Lilly, right? Like not a great quarter, ended up being a top buy, um, Tesla top sell. You know, it was up like $20 in the last week or $40 I think actually in the last week. Um, so they do tend to do that. I'd say on the crypto side it's been, ETH is starting to be a little more rising popularity, but, um, Ripple has been the most popular over the last few weeks. Um, we're also seeing like we have something called the Robin Hood Investor Index. And so that tracks kind of ownership over time. And about 20% of the index is in some sort of AI or AI related names. So you have like, you know, that over other overarching theme is that our clients tend to be able to invest in a secular trend over time. Is that low or is it is relative to the past? It used to be lower, I would say, like because it used to be a lot more of like the Mag 7s and like the things that they know and use, like Disney and Apple, and and those things used to be at the top. And now you're starting to see like things those things start to drop and more of this theme coming in. The other theme that I saw come in more recently over the last month is, um, aerospace and defense names are starting. So that's like 3% of the index, which is not huge, but you know, it has a little bit of a name in there. Yeah. And you were just saying how you're seeing more individual stock picking on the platform. There was a big ETF boom right around the April lows from the tariff announcements. So what can you decipher from that? Are retail investors becoming more tactical, are really chasing a lot of these momentum opportunities and volatile, uh, time period? I think they play the volatility really well. Um, I I think they're they're, uh, very savvy, um, our customers are anyway, generally speaking. Um, and that tells you like when there's a big dip, they're like just go long beta, right? Like that's kind of the way maybe a multi-asset class portfolio manager might think. Um, and then once you kind of get to the point where beta, there's more to play in the individual name space, that's where they, uh, tend to focus. And and you do see it. I mean, the one thing I would say is that there's also a little bit of a, um, our customers do also like income, at least a subset of our customers like income. And so playing some of those, um, ETFs that have a focus on income, that is something else that I've started to see more recently. And a few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about investor euphoria, whether or not the market was getting too frothy, we saw a lot of short selling, a lot of the meme stock reaction. Has that settled down at this point, or is that just as active as it was a few weeks ago? I, we didn't see that so much. Um, I mean, I I'd say, meaning that like activity has been high and it continues to be high. I haven't seen much of a shift. Um, but I think there's a place where you could, I'm not sure it will turn because our customers are younger on average, if you think about it, like they're average age of 34. Um, that is definitely lower than some of the other platforms. And they can take longer term views and sort of play the volatility. So if there is a big dip, if things are, you know, then they, you know, they do buy when there is a dip, which I think is different than those that maybe a little older and need to start thinking about preserving capital. And we've been talking to a lot of experts that say retail traders have really been leading the market higher because they've been continuously buying the dip, and then sort of dragging along those institutions with them. Yeah. Yeah. And things turn out to not be as bad as they were expected. Yeah. No, at least at least not in this current moment. We'll have to wait and see. But Steph, thank you for those insights. 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