By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) stock surged as much as 80% on Wednesday in a wild U.S. trading session that sent it to post-IPO highs.
Shares closed up 50%, at $70.39 but then turned lower in the after-hours market, down 2%. Still, during regular hours they traded as high as $85.
Already, the stock closed 24% higher Tuesday after it breached its IPO price of $38 for the first time since listing last week.
After listing at its issue price, the stock had closed 8% lower on debut. The shares were offered in the $38 to $42 range but were eventually issued at the lower end.
Besides the app’s popularity amongst casual and retail investors, the company’s initial public offering was a much-discussed event for other reasons as well.
No other company had previously reserved as many shares for its own customers.
The online brokerage sold as much as 25% of its IPO shares to 301,573 of its retail customers, representing about 1.3% of the platform’s 22.5 million funded accounts.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest purchased 1.3 million shares of the company on listing and topped that up with 1.85 million shares the following day.