Robinhood Team

Resources To Help You Navigate The Markets

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of us. Many of you are feeling the impact personally and professionally, and the situation continues to change quickly in our communities and around the world. 

COVID-19’s unknown economic impact has also spurred historic and volatile market conditions which are driving heightened participation in the stock market. Perhaps now more than ever, access to financial information is critical to making finance more approachable and enabling you to feel more confident when it comes to investing. Here are some resources available to you as you navigate the markets:

  • The Robinhood Snacks daily newsletter and podcast are an approachable way to stay up-to-date on the markets. 

  • All Robinhood customers can access trusted news sources for free through our recently re-built newsfeed. Stay up-to-date with WSJ Markets coverage in-app, as well as news from Reuters and Barron’s, and video from CNBC Business, Reuters, and Cheddar.

  • Our Help Center can answer many frequently asked questions about our products and the markets, including our new Market Volatility page. For any other questions, you can always reach out to our team for support. While our support volume has been extremely high recently—and has impacted our response time—our team will work as quickly as possible to respond to you.

In these uncertain times, we are grateful to have the opportunity to continue to serve all of you and feel incredibly fortunate that you choose Robinhood to participate in the markets.  

Thank you to all of you, all of our employees, and to everyone in our communities working on the front lines. We hope you’re staying healthy, and taking good care of yourselves, your family, and your friends. 

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An Update from Robinhood’s Founders

When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation. 

Our team has spent the last two days evaluating and addressing this issue. We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long. We now understand the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure—which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect—triggering a failure of our DNS system. 

Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups. 

Our team is continuing to work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure. 

After a brief outage this morning, our trading platform was stable for the remainder of the day. As our engineering team works to upgrade our infrastructure, we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.

We take our responsibility to you and your money seriously. We recognize that many of you have questions, and we’re working to respond to them as quickly as possible. 

Many of you depend on Robinhood for your investments, and we’re personally committed to doing all we can to operate a stable service that’s available when you need it the most.

—Baiju and Vlad, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs

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Discover the Financial You

New ways to learn who you are as an investor, track investments you care about, and explore what’s available on Robinhood

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We believe information empowers people and that your experience with Robinhood should reflect your unique financial life. So we’re introducing new features to help you learn who you are as an investor, track and organize the assets you care about, and explore what’s available on Robinhood. 

Learn how you’re investing through Robinhood

We’re introducing new investment profiles with insights that help you better understand how you’re investing. Your profile will show you what percentage of your portfolio is invested in stocks, options, ETFs, and crypto, including a breakdown by sectors and types. We’re also adding other insights, like how many of your investments have upcoming earnings or states where your investments are concentrated. 

Interested in diversifying your investment mix? Tap a category to discover stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies in that category. 

We want profiles to feel familiar, intuitive, and representative of you. So we’re giving you the ability to customize your profile by choosing a color scheme, creating a username, and uploading a photo that represents you. 

Profiles will begin rolling out next week in your Account tab. 

Track, organize, and explore investments you care about

We’re adding more control and customization for the stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies you’re following. Now, you can create and follow your own lists of stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies you’re interested in. You can add unique names, like “Want to Buy” or “Need to Research,” and opt into notifications about price movements, breaking news, and events.

We’re also adding the ability to sort lists by symbol, price, and % change, making it easier to find stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies based on criteria you care about.

We’ve revamped the experience for Collections and now you can add them to your lists. Lists like ETFs, Hospitality Stocks, and Bitcoin Family help you discover what’s available on Robinhood. 

Explore lists by searching in Robinhood, by tapping a category in your profile, or by finding them on stock and ETF pages.

We’re excited to share these features with the first set of customers today and provide more tools and insights that empower you.

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Snacks Daily Podcast hits 10 Million Downloads

A wholehearted thank you to all our Snackers

At Robinhood, we’re focused on building products that delight, inform, and empower people. Last March, we launched Robinhood Snacks, our digestible financial newsletter and podcast. Every weekday, we break down some of the trends and top stories shaping markets to help keep you informed about the news that affects your finances, decisions, and lives.

Today, we’re excited to share an update on how we’re doing:

  • Just last month, our Snacks Daily podcast passed 10 million downloads. 

  • Thanks to our passionate community of Snackers, the podcast is currently #3 in Apple’s Business News category.

  • Snacks Minute, our 3-minute version of Snacks Daily, is also consistently ranked in Spotify’s top 10 podcasts. 

  • Combined, Robinhood Snacks podcasts are currently listened to by more than 165,000 people every weekday.

Subscribe to Robinhood Snacks

We’re also happy to announce that the Snacks team is growing and introduce you to the newest member, Rebecca Moretti. Rebecca will co-author the Snacks newsletter and spearhead video initiatives.

Thank you for making us a part of your commutes, breakfasts, workouts, and daily routines. To celebrate, we wanted to highlight a few of our favorite Tweets from you:

We’ve loved growing with our community of Snackers and have big plans ahead – stay tuned for more soon! 

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#RobinhoodRewind 2019

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As we get ready to close out 2019, first and foremost we want to say thank you to each and every one of our customers for another incredible year.

We believe participation is power, and with your continued passion, support, and feedback, more than 10 million people are now able to access the financial markets through Robinhood. 

Increasing Participation

This year, we introduced a range of new products and features so you can do more with your money, including: 

  • Cash Management: Invest, spend, and earn interest with a competitive Annual Percentage Yield (APY)* that is 1.80% as of October 30, 2019. This feature is rolling out to customers now.

  • Fractional Shares: Rolling out this week, this gives you the flexibility to invest as little as $1 or as much as you want in the companies or ETFs you believe in. 

  • Robinhood Crypto: We continued to expand our crypto offering. You can now buy & sell seven cryptocurrencies commission-free in 46 states and Washington, D.C. 

Demystifying Finance

We believe access to financial information is key to making confident investment decisions, so we introduced more resources to keep you informed, including:

  • Robinhood Snacks: Get digestible and entertaining financial news with our newsletter and podcast.

  • Robinhood Gold: Premium members now have access to professional research from Morningstar and Level II market data from Nasdaq.

  • Robinhood’s fully rebuilt newsfeed: Access comprehensive finance news from trusted news sources such as The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Barron’s - right in the app. Our newsfeed also delivers ad-free, uninterrupted news videos from CNN Business, Cheddar, and Reuters.

Breaking Down Barriers

In 2019, we also saw exciting industry-wide change that removed a needless barrier for millions when some of the biggest brokerages followed our lead by dropping their commission fees. This change we pioneered is promising, but our work is far from done.

As we look forward to 2020, we’ll continue to challenge the industry and create a more level playing field for everyone - whether you’re a first time or seasoned investor. And, we’ll continue bringing Robinhood to even more customers in the US, and our first customers in the UK!

Happy New Year!

The Robinhood Team

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*Cash Management is an additional feature offered as part of your Robinhood Financial LLC brokerage account. The Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is paid by program banks and might change at any time at the program banks’ discretion. Interest is earned on uninvested cash swept from your brokerage account to the program banks. Neither Robinhood Financial LLC nor any of its affiliates are banks. The debit card is issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license by Mastercard® International, Incorporated.

Fractional Shares and More New Ways to Invest

Introducing Fractional Shares, DRIP, and Recurring Investments

Today, we’re introducing Fractional Shares, a new way to invest with Robinhood.

Some stocks and ETFs cost hundreds or thousands of dollars for a single share. This means that many people may not be able to invest in their favorite companies or funds. With Fractional Shares, you can invest in stocks including Amazon, Apple, Disney, Berkshire Hathaway, and thousands of others with as little as $1. Sign up today to get early access when we launch next week.

Get Early Access

Investing in fractional shares on Robinhood is intuitive, commission-free, and real-time. Choose how much you want to invest and diversify your portfolio with smaller amounts of money. Learn more about fractional shares trading.

With Fractional Shares, we’re also introducing two highly requested features to improve the investing experience. Starting early next year, we’ll support Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) and Recurring Investments. Automatically reinvest cash dividends back into your stocks and ETFs, and schedule recurring investments. Stay tuned for the launch of these new features.

Pioneering commission-free investing was only the beginning. We believe that fractional shares trading will open up investing to even more people, and we’ll continue to find ways to democratize the financial system so everyone can participate.

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Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Crypto, LLC are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc. 

Securities trading is offered to self-directed customers by Robinhood Financial. Robinhood Financial is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Robinhood Financial LLC is a member of SIPC, which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). Explanatory brochure available upon request or at www.sipc.org. 

Cryptocurrency trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto. Robinhood Crypto is not a member of FINRA or SIPC. Cryptocurrencies are not stocks and your cryptocurrency investments are not protected by either FDIC or SIPC.

Commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs and options refers to $0 commissions for Robinhood Financial self-directed individual cash or margin brokerage accounts that trade U.S. listed securities via mobile devices or Web. Relevant SEC & FINRA fees may apply. Please see the Fee Schedule.

Robinhood Financial is currently registered in the following jurisdictions. This is not an offer, solicitation of an offer, or advice to buy or sell securities, or open a brokerage account in any jurisdiction where Robinhood Financial is not registered. Additional information about your broker can be found by clicking here.

Margin trading involves interest charges and risks, including the potential to lose more than any amounts deposited or the need to deposit additional collateral in a falling market. Before using margin, customers must determine whether this type of trading strategy is right for them given their specific investment objectives, experience, risk tolerance, and financial situation. For more information please see Robinhood Financial’s Margin Disclosure Statement, Margin Agreement and FINRA Investor Information. These disclosures contain information on Robinhood Financial’s lending policies, interest charges, and the risks associated with margin accounts.

Investors should consider the investment objectives and unique risk profile of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) carefully before investing. ETFs are subject to risks similar to those of other diversified portfolios. Leveraged and Inverse ETFs may not be suitable for all investors and may increase exposure to volatility through the use of leverage, short sales of securities, derivatives and other complex investment strategies.

Although ETFs are designed to provide investment results that generally correspond to the performance of their respective underlying indices, they may not be able to exactly replicate the performance of the indices because of expenses and other factors. A prospectus contains this and other information about the ETF and should be read carefully before investing. Customers should obtain prospectuses from issuers and/or their third party agents who distribute and make prospectuses available for review. ETFs are required to distribute portfolio gains to shareholders at year end. These gains may be generated by portfolio rebalancing or the need to meet diversification requirements. ETF trading will also generate tax consequences. Additional regulatory guidance on Exchange Traded Products can be found by clicking here.

Options transactions may involve a high degree of risk. To learn more about the risks associated with options trading, please review the options disclosure document entitled Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options, available here or through https://www.theocc.com/about/publications/character-risks.jsp.

Investors should be aware that system response, execution price, speed, liquidity, market data, and account access times are affected by many factors, including market volatility, size and type of order, market conditions, system performance, and other factors.

All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. There is always the potential of losing money when you invest in securities, or other financial products. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing.

Trading in cryptocurrencies comes with significant risks, including volatile market price swings or flash crashes, market manipulation, and cybersecurity risks. In addition, cryptocurrency markets and exchanges are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange investing.  Several federal agencies have also published advisory documents surrounding the risks of virtual currency. For more information see the Robinhood Crypto Risk Disclosure, the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory, the CFTC’s Customer Advisory, the SEC’s Investor Alert, and FINRA’s Investor Alert.

Check the background of Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Securities, LLC on FINRA’s BrokerCheck.

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