What happened: Robinhood (HOOD) jumped as much as 7% on Thursday.
What’s behind the move: The trading platform announced a flurry of developments during its first UK-based event, including perpetual futures for commodities, AI trading, and new stock tokens that are tradable 24/7.
Robinhood, known as a retail trading platform in the US, has been expanding internationally, launching in Europe and the UK last year.
It also rolled out Robinhood in Canada for crypto products and has received its Singapore license to expand there.
“We see a lot of demand for this idea of having a very simple, easy to use UX and UI and put the customers first and not adding a lot of fees like some of our competitors,” Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood crypto vice president and general manager, told Yahoo FInance on Thursday.
The company has also leaned into agentic AI. Customers can create their own agents to analyze their investments, find opportunities, and make trades.
“It’s going to level the playing ground, and it’s going to make retail able to participate in the market a lot more than they used to be,” said Kerbrat.
What else you need to know: The company said it’s giving eligible European customers access to perpetual futures contracts with no expiration date — linked to assets such as gold, silver, crude oil, and foreign exchange rates.
“Perps” have become popular on decentralized platforms like Hyperliquid in the weeks following the war in Iran. Traders have bet on oil prices on weekends, when traditional markets are closed.
Robinhood also announced the launch of the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, a Layer 2 blockchain that provides a turnkey environment for builders.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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