Robinhood climbs back from lowest level since IPO

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Robinhood logo is seen on a smartphone in front of a displayed same logo in this illustration taken, July 2, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Medha Singh

(Reuters) -Shares of Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) reversed course to trade nearly 6% higher on Friday, driven by a broader market rebound, after touching their lowest level since the stock's IPO in July earlier in the day.

Stellar results from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Visa (NYSE:V) helped the U.S. stock indexes rise on the last day of a week marked by wild swings amid worries about aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West. [.N]

"Across the board, we are seeing a pretty big reversion from some of these stocks that have really been crushed," Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments, said.

Commission-free brokerage Robinhood saw its stock fall over 14% earlier, after it posted a quarterly loss on Thursday evening.

The company reported a net loss of $423 million for the three months ended December compared with a profit a year earlier, and its costs more than doubled.

Like many tech start-ups, Robinhood has yet to turn a profit following its IPO. Its monthly active users declined 8% from the sequentially previous quarter as retail investors pulled back from the market.

"Robinhood was one of the pandemic darlings. Almost exactly a year ago, it sat at the center of the meme stock mania. And that has clearly cooled off as we headed into a new year," Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York, said.

The stock was trading at $12.26 in afternoon trade on Friday. The share price at its IPO in July last year was $38 and it had hit a record high of $85 in August.

Short-interest in Robinhood was $501 million, or 10.77% of float, with about $127 million worth of shares shorted over the last 30 days alone, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.