Google’s Parent Alphabet Discards Robinhood Markets Stake

Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, reportedly dissolved its entire stake in Robinhood Markets. The report on Monday, Nov. 13, comes months after the technology holding company trimmed its stake in the trading app operator by almost 90%.

At that time, after selling this big portion of its stake in Robinhood, it was left with about 612,214 shares. Now, this remaining stake was also sold off and is being disclosed today.

Alphabet’s Investment in Robinhood

According to Reuters, Alphabet made investments in the Menlo Park, California-headquartered financial services company when it was still an unlisted startup. The company got interested in it as Robinhood immediately captured the spirit of retail traders with its easy-to-use interface and most of all, commission-free trades.

However, due to the rate hikes imposed by the Federal Reserve last year, the economic conditions became gloomy, and with the changes Robinhood lost some of its drawing power, and its customer base lingered on the sidelines. In its Q3 earnings report last week, the trading app operator also indicated missing Wall Street estimates for revenue amid the slowdown in trading.

Robinhood’s Recent Decline

More recently, Robinhood went through a very difficult time as it struggled with its business amid unstable macroeconomic conditions. It also experienced a period of higher interest rates.

PYMNTS further reported that in September Robinhood revealed its monthly active users (MAUs) shrunk to 10.6 million compared to 13.3 million that it had in the same month last year. Its crypto trading revenues also dipped by 55% as shown in the Q3 report ending Sept. 30.

In any case, with these results, Alphabet decided to sell all of its Robinhood shares. “This decline in revenues is significant, considering the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies and the growing interest in crypto trading among investors,” PYMNTS opined.

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