“Unlike where the business was back in 2022 where we were predominantly focused on novice investors, the new focus on being the best platform for active traders has made us more resilient in times like these,” he said. “Because we used to just not have a lot of mechanisms for customers that were more sophisticated, that wanted to trade [in] sideways or declining markets.”
The company’s IPO later that year proved a bust, with shares falling from an initial price of $38 to as low as $7 in 2022, when the S&P 500 ended the year down 18% as the Federal Reserve dramatically hiked interest rates to fight surging inflation.
Customers used the platform consistently throughout the month, CFO Jason Warnick said, with equities trading currently at a four-year high. Options trading is also close to an all-time peak, he added, and users’ balances on margin—meaning borrowed money—doubled to $8.4 billion from last year.
“So I’d say that there’s a pretty broad-based strength of retail engagement that we’re seeing,” Warnick said, “and all signs are positive throughout the month of April.”
About 4.5 million contracts were traded in April alone, the CEO said, more than the entirety of the first three months of the year, allowing customers to use the platform to take short positions for the first time.
“So it’s really opening up new behaviors and new styles of trading for our active traders,” Tenev said.
