Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD)

Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Traders acquired 218,678 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 37% compared to the average volume of 160,027 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

HOOD has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on shares of Robinhood Markets from $24.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Robinhood Markets from $36.00 to $42.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 2nd. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $52.00 target price (up from $40.00) on shares of Robinhood Markets in a report on Monday, December 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Robinhood Markets from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $40.00 to $46.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their target price on shares of Robinhood Markets from $30.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $43.07.

Insider Activity at Robinhood Markets

In other Robinhood Markets news, Director Baiju Bhatt sold 90,866 shares of Robinhood Markets stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.27, for a total transaction of $4,113,503.82. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 5,042 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $228,251.34. The trade was a 94.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Steven M. Quirk sold 19,861 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Sunday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.54, for a total value of $745,581.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 395,166 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,834,531.64. The trade was a 4.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 3,700,658 shares of company stock valued at $140,360,682 over the last quarter. 19.95% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of HOOD. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its stake in shares of Robinhood Markets by 1,211,858.7% during the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 3,817,670 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,410,000 after buying an additional 3,817,355 shares during the last quarter. Azora Capital LP acquired a new stake in shares of Robinhood Markets during the 3rd quarter valued at $79,780,000. FMR LLC grew its position in Robinhood Markets by 31.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 14,129,544 shares of the company’s stock worth $330,914,000 after acquiring an additional 3,368,118 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in Robinhood Markets by 486.5% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 2,788,666 shares of the company’s stock worth $103,906,000 after purchasing an additional 2,313,213 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Robinhood Markets by 19.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 11,620,673 shares of the company’s stock valued at $271,708,000 after purchasing an additional 1,895,427 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.27% of the company’s stock.

Robinhood Markets Stock Up 4.5 %

HOOD opened at $48.15 on Friday. Robinhood Markets has a 12-month low of $10.38 and a 12-month high of $49.27. The stock has a market cap of $42.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 81.61, a PEG ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 2.07. The business has a 50 day moving average of $38.63 and a 200-day moving average of $28.22.

Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The company reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.18 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $637.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $660.53 million. Robinhood Markets had a net margin of 21.80% and a return on equity of 7.52%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 36.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.09) earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Robinhood Markets will post 0.91 earnings per share for the current year.

About Robinhood Markets

Robinhood Markets, Inc operates financial services platform in the United States. Its platform allows users to invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), American depository receipts, options, gold, and cryptocurrencies. The company offers fractional trading, recurring investments, fully-paid securities lending, access to investing on margin, cash sweep, instant withdrawals, retirement program, around-the-clock trading, and initial public offerings participation services.