Online brokerage Robinhood will IPO this Thursday, planning to raise up to $2.5 billion, making it one of the biggest IPOs of the year.
According to the latest media reports, Robin Hood has determined that its new shares are positioned at $38 per share, falling below the $38-42 lower limit of its prospectus range. Based on the issuance of 52.4 million shares, the IPO raised $1.991 billion and valued the company at approximately $32 billion.
Like many other trading apps, Robin Hood offers commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies. As of March this year, Robin Hood had 18 million customer funding accounts. Unusually, Robin Hood reserved 20 to 35 percent of its IPO shares for retail investors using its app.
As the main battlefield for trading "meme stocks", Robin Hood's listing should be sought after by retail investors, but the reality is that retail investors are generally skeptical, and some even speak ill of the platform on the Reddit forum.
Some retail investors are skeptical of the prospects for their IPO. One netizen posted, "Don't touch the Robin Hood IPO !! Don't go long, don't go short, ignore it. ”
Among the reasons retail investors cited skepticism were that they believed Robin Hood's pursuit of a valuation of more than $30 billion was unrealistic, that regulators could hit Robin Hood's business, and that haunting operation that took place in January.
Zachary Wells, a mechanic living in Kansas City, Missouri, has been trading on the app for more than a year. "I love it, it sparked my interest in investing, it's easy to use and very straightforward," he says. I just don't believe they'll do the right thing for their clients the next time they get stuck. ”
Robin Hood's most major negative operation can be traced back to the beginning of this year, when the influencer stock (the game station and AMC theater line shorted by the hedge fund) soared for several days, and there was an epic short roll. But Robin Hood then stopped trading the stocks, angering users who felt betrayed by the company that claimed to "democratize investment."
Netizens wrote, "HOOD? Robin Hood's ticker symbol should be ROB (Robber). (Robin Hood will trade under the ticker symbol "HOOD")
Robin Hood has also been criticized for relying on "order flow payments" for most of its revenue. In this way, it charges a transaction matching fee from the market maker, but does not charge a personal transaction fee to the user.
Another user, Sherey Hardy, from Michigan, decided not to participate in the IPO because she was concerned that the newly listed stock could be more volatile. She said she would wait until the company was profitable in the first quarter before buying the stock.
Of course, the complaints on Reddit don't mean that all investors aren't interested. While many of the comments on the forum were negative, some investors did see a glimmer of hope.
One netizen said that what cannot be ignored is that the credit for opening the "investment door" to the public should be attributed to Robin Hood. (Leaving aside that operation and order flow payments) The "investment gate" has been missing for a long time.