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Robinhood Surges 24% to Surpass IPO Price for First Time

Wall Street’s lackluster welcome for Robinhood Markets Inc. didn’t last long.

Robinhood Surges 24% to Surpass IPO Price for First Time
The Robinhood website home screen on a laptop computer arranged in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S. (Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

Wall Street’s lackluster welcome for Robinhood Markets Inc. didn’t last long.

Shares of the popular trading app, which gained prominence when legions of stuck-at-home amateurs turned investing into a hobby, soared 24% to $46.80 on Tuesday. The move came as more than 88 million shares changed hands, larger than the trading volume for Friday and Monday combined.

It marks the first time the company’s stock has held well above the $38 price at which it went public, except for the first few moments of its trading debut Thursday, before slipping back and ending lower on the day. It’s also the first time it has surpassed the $43 target that was once set as the upper bound on the proposed IPO price.

Robinhood Surges 24% to Surpass IPO Price for First Time

Tuesday’s rally came with the stock again ranking as the top trade on Fidelity’s platform with more than 9,000 buy orders coming from customers. The record close gave the company a $39.4 billion market value. The momentum carried over into postmarket trading, with shares climbing 5.1%.

While many were quick to downplay the stock’s reception as individual traders largely shunned buying during its first trading session, it did find backing from some high-profile investors.

Cathie Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund holds 4.9 million shares, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Robinhood could make an acquisition similar to Square Inc.’s $29 billion purchase of Afterpay Ltd.

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