robin hood is expanding its services to more active traders seeking trading access beyond traditional U.S. stock market hours.
The brokerage firm is expanding trading hours, adding perpetual crypto trading and AI-powered automated trading tools to appeal to more active traders, it announced Tuesday night at the HOOD Summit in Houston, Texas.
The new service reflects Robinhood’s evolution beyond its commission-free stock trading roots to become a more comprehensive platform for active traders. This strategy will put the company increasingly in competition with both crypto-native platforms such as: coinbaseexpanding into derivatives and other financial products and even traditional brokerages. schwabthis year added 24/7 trading of select crypto futures on the thinkorswim platform.
Competition among retail brokerages is moving beyond low transaction costs toward access, speed, and automation as firms compete for customers who trade in a wider range of markets and time zones.
Robinhood stock was little changed Wednesday on the news.
“Ownership cannot function without markets, and markets cannot function without traders,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a statement. “We’re making Robinhood the best place in the world for active traders by providing tools that were once reserved for hedge funds, big banks, and quantitative firms.”
Starting next year, Robinhood customers will be able to trade select U.S. stocks 24/7, including weekends. The move is an expansion of the 24/7 trading functionality introduced in 2023, allowing customers to trade from 8pm ET on Sundays to 8pm ET on Fridays.
Agency trading
Robinhood also introduced an AI-powered automated trading tool that allows users to build their own agents, following the launch of agent trading earlier this year. The idea is that customers can use agents to automate parts of the trading process and pursue a 24-hour strategy.
Tenev noted that although most markets went electronic about 20 years ago and algorithms now drive much of the trading volume on exchanges, the strategies of human traders still play a role.
“I don’t see it going away,” he said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I don’t think it will ever be 100%, but it does open up new frontiers of capabilities. Every time we get a new asset class, whether it’s new capabilities like PERP, revenue forecasting, or AI tools, it creates new areas for traders and market participants to compete. I’m sure there’s a lot of opportunity.”
Additionally, the brokerage announced plans to allow users to trade perpetual futures contracts for cryptocurrencies on the Robinhood app. This provides leveraged exposure to cryptocurrencies without the need for traders to hold the underlying assets.
