(Reuters) – Robinhood Markets Inc, the brokerage at the center of last year’s retail trading frenzy, posted a 43% fall in first-quarter revenue on Thursday as transaction volumes declined across asset classes.
Shares of Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood were down more than 9% at $9.19 in extended trading following results. The shares, which have lost more than 43% of their market value so far this year, were sold in its July IPO for $38 a piece.
Trading volumes have tempered from last year’s frenetic pace when retail investors used its platform to pump money into shares of so-called meme stocks including GameStop and AMC Entertainment.
The company announced on Tuesday it was laying off about 9% of its full-time employees, saying rapid headcount growth has led to some duplicate roles and job functions.
The slowdown comes as the COVID-19 pandemic-era trend of retail trading takes a dive in the backdrop of rising vaccination rates that have allowed economies to reopen and restrictions on leisure activities to be withdrawn.
High-growth technology stocks have also come under pressure this year as poor performance of shares and falling analyst confidence sours investor sentiment.
Common with other high-growth tech firms, Robinhood has yet to turn a profit since its market debut. Robinhood reported a net loss of $392 million or $0.45 per share in the three months ended March. A year earlier, which was before its IPO, the company posted net income of $1.4 billion or $6.26 per share.
Total net revenues decreased to $299 million, compared with $522 million a year earlier.
Robinhood’s monthly active users fell 10% to 15.9 million for March 2022, compared with 17.7 million for March 2021. The company attributed the decline to users with lower balances.
(This story corrects paragraph 7 to reflect that Robinhood reported a net loss of $392 million or $0.45 per share in the three months ended March instead of December)
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Aditya Soni and Will Dunham)
