Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD) shares are in focus Monday as the company navigates a busy stretch — record-breaking trading traffic from last week’s SpaceX IPO, a newly minted IPO underwriting business and the FIFA World Cup putting its prediction markets platform in the spotlight.
The SpaceX IPO Traffic
Robinhood saw record-breaking traffic during the SpaceX IPO on Friday, with its systems briefly experiencing disruptions before recovering. Robinhood was one of a handful of retail brokers — alongside Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi and E*TRADE — that received retail IPO allocation for SpaceX, giving its 27.7 million funded customers access to what became the largest IPO in history. The spike in platform activity validates Robinhood’s positioning as the go-to platform for retail participation in landmark market events.
The Underwriting Business
Robinhood received regulatory approval for its securities division to operate as an underwriter for initial public offerings — allowing it to move from a distribution role into the main underwriting group, a step that could unlock higher-fee revenue streams. The timing couldn’t have been better, arriving just days before the SpaceX debut. The approval signals a broader ambition to compete directly with traditional Wall Street banks for IPO business rather than simply distributing allocations to retail customers.
The World Cup Opportunity
Bernstein called the 2026 FIFA World Cup a “watershed moment” for prediction markets, estimating the tournament could generate $5 billion to $10 billion in consumer volume and drive roughly 650,000 incremental funded prediction accounts for Robinhood. Robinhood has expanded its World Cup prediction market offering through Rothera, a CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange co-owned with Susquehanna International Group, routing match outcome contracts, tournament winner markets, and total goals markets through its own exchange rather than through Kalshi. Prediction markets are running at an annualized revenue rate of $415 million and are projected to reach $586 million by year-end — roughly 17% of Robinhood’s transaction-based revenues.
Robinhood Shares Surge
HOOD Price Action: At the time of publication, Robinhood shares are trading 4.92% higher at $97.77, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Image via Shutterstock
