Investors' risk appetites have been tested in the early days of August.
The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX), commonly known as the “fear gauge index,” hovered around 20 on Monday, continuing to cool after it briefly spiked on Aug. 5 to 65, a high not seen since the pandemic-induced panic selling of 2020.
Amid the turbulent action in markets, Robinhood noticed its users assessing their portfolios. But instead of selling, many investors added to their positions.
“One of the things we've been seeing thus far in August is more buying than selling,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told Yahoo Finance (video above). “And that's why we've been seeing so many deposits. Our customers generally have been seeing this as an opportunity to add to their positions.”
Robinhood reported having 24.2 million funded customers as of June 30. The trading platform reached $139.7 billion in assets under custody in the second quarter.
Tenev explained that market downdrafts shed light on the different kinds of market participants on Robinhood's platform.
“Traders who typically are more advanced ... look at volatility as an opportunity because they have sophisticated strategies that they can employ when markets are going down and sideways," Tenev said. "For the more buy-and-hold investors, typically they're saving for retirement, and they have long-term time horizons."
In addition to its options and equity trading products, Robinhood has leaned into historically volatile cryptocurrency assets to drive further growth. During the second quarter, Robinhood's crypto segment revenue rocketed higher by 161% year over year.
"There's another two technological shifts that are going to affect our space, and those are artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency," Tenev said. "Both of those have the potential to completely reorganize how financial services are delivered to customers, both on an infrastructure level and the service level, and we're thinking about that every day and positioning Robinhood to be successful and a leader across both of these shifts."
Robinhood isn't the only crypto-friendly trading firm in town, however. For instance, Morgan Stanley (MS) recently gave its advisers the green light to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients.
"We already have, you know, a very large cryptocurrency business in retail market share," Tenev said. "It's been growing, and it's kind of been a dark horse in the space. Not a lot of people think of Robinhood as a major player, but ... in retail crypto, we're right up there in market share, and we're continuing to grow."
Meanwhile, as volatility recedes, investment strategists at major firms are building their post-mayhem playbook.
“Look, I think what you saw early Monday [Aug. 5] ... was a little bit of opportunistic buying in kind of favorite stocks,” Stuart Kaiser, Citi's head of US equity trading, told Yahoo Finance. “I don't think this is the case where you just go all in back on risk. I think this is the case where you have a stock or a sector or a market that you were sort of predisposed to own anyway, and now you potentially kind of buy into that, and I think that's what we're seeing.”
The pullback early last week in some high-valuation tech stocks and other coveted businesses prompted some long-term bulls to buy in. According to UBS, fundamentals still remain "solid" at lower valuations, which could set up these names for outperformance.
“While the volatility in tech has been dramatic in recent days, we think the global correction has uncovered structural opportunities across many quality tech segments,” Solita Marcelli, UBS Global Wealth Management chief investment officer for the Americas, wrote in a client note. “Investors may consider building balanced exposure in global tech, with a modest bias to internet and semiconductor names.”
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