CALIFORNIA: Robinhood Markets Inc has been added to the S&P 500, marking a new phase for the retail trading platform that helped define the pandemic-era boom in individual investing.
The company will join the benchmark in the latest quarterly rebalance, S&P Dow Jones Indices said last Friday.
AppLovin Corp and Emcor Group Inc will also be added to the index. The three companies will replace MarketAxess Holdings Inc, Caesars Entertainment Inc and Enphase Energy Inc in the index prior to the start of trading on Sept 22.
Once viewed as a symbol of market speculation, Robinhood now meets the index’s criteria after posting consistent profits and hitting key market cap and liquidity thresholds.
The inclusion brings the trading app into the portfolios of pension funds and index trackers around the world – embedding a retail-focused firm once seen as an outlier into the core of the US equity market.
Shares of Robinhood were up more than 7% in after-hours trading last Friday.
The milestone underscores how fast retail-driven companies can move from the edge of the financial system to its centre, as speculation reshapes markets from meme stocks to digital assets.
Robinhood’s index addition marks a new phase for the once upstart firm that offers stocks, options and cryptocurrency trading to everyday investors. — Bloomberg
