Oo-De-Lally: Robinhood Shares Jump 65%

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 29: : Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev outside the Wall Street subway
Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Robinhood

Robinhood shares surged higher at the market open Wednesday, bringing the newly public stock trading app’s rally to more than 120 percent for the week.

Shares of Robinhood jumped 65 percent to around $77 per share on Wednesday.  At one point shares hit $85.

Shares were halted several times as automatic circuit breakers kicked in an attempt to calm the volatility. These appeared to have had the effect of pushing the price back down to around $63, a 40 percent gain on the day.

Shares of the company, which gamified trading with a smartphone app, priced at $38 per share in its initial public offering last week. That was the low end of the expected range, an indication that institutional demand was lower than many expected. Shares tanked eight percent on the first day of trading and had traded mostly lower than that until Tuesday, when shares suddenly jumped by around 24 percent.

There was no news underlying the trading surge. Short-sellers may have been squeezed by yesterday’s jump and found themselves having to bid up shares to cover their positions.

 

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