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Tag: financial market

  • Robinhood Rethinks UK Expansion Plans

    Robinhood Rethinks UK Expansion Plans

    Robinhood has informed individuals it is calling off its plans to expand to the UK market.

    Robinhood has gained widespread popularity as an app that makes it easy to trade stocks. At the same time, it has experienced its fair share of growing pains and controversy.

    The service has experienced multiple outages, some of which cost the company goodwill from its users. In some cases, individuals were unable to make trades on some of the busiest days of the market. Even worse, a 20 year-old student apparently committed suicide after seeing a negative balance of $730,000.

    Amid these issues, not to mention the problems the pandemic has caused, CNN is reporting that Robinhood has sent out an email informing individuals on a waitlist that it is putting its plans on hold.

    “The world has changed a lot over the past several months and we’re adapting with it,” read the email.. “On a company level, we’ve come to recognize that our efforts are currently best spent on strengthening our core business in the US and making further investments in our foundational systems.”

    Robinhood’s problems illustrate the challenges companies face trying to change the status quo in well-established industries, especially in the financial sector.

  • Robinhood Experiences Third Outage in Two Weeks

    Robinhood Experiences Third Outage in Two Weeks

    For the third time in two weeks, the Robinhood trading app has experienced a major outage during a heavy trading day.

    Monday morning Robinhood notified its customers via Twitter that trading was down and the company was investigating the issue.

    Trading is currently down on Robinhood and we’re investigating the issue. We’re focused on getting back up and running as soon as possible and we’ll update the status page with the latest https://status.robinhood.com.

    — Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) 3/9/2020

    An hour later, approximately 10:30 AM, the company informed users it had partially restored services.

    Trading has been partially restored on Robinhood and our team is working to get our platform fully back up and running. We’ll update the status page with the latest: https://status.robinhood.com

    — Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) 3/9/2020

    Shortly after 1:00 PM, the company had restored most functionality, except fractional equities.

    Trading on Robinhood has been functional for new orders with the exception of fractional equities since at least 10:25 AM ET. We’ll continue to update our status page with the latest https://status.robinhood.com.

    — Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) 3/9/20)

    The company has already faced threats of class-action lawsuits and loss of customers as a result of the previous outages. Customers have complained that they have lost out on some of the biggest trading days, in some cases costing them thousands of dollars.

    Robinhood is going to need to demonstrate they can solve their issues once and for all if they hope to keep existing customers, let alone continue growing.

  • Morgan Stanley Set to Buy E-Trade

    Morgan Stanley Set to Buy E-Trade

    Morgan Stanley has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase E-Trade, the popular electronic trading platform.

    The deal is an all-stock transaction, valued at roughly $13 billion, making it the largest such deal since the 2008 financial crisis. The acquisition will help Morgan Stanley’s diversification efforts, bringing in 5.2 million customers and $360 billion in assets.

    ““E*TRADE represents an extraordinary growth opportunity for our Wealth Management business and a leap forward in our Wealth Management strategy. The combination adds an iconic brand in the direct-to-consumer channel to our leading advisor-driven model, while also creating a premier Workplace Wealth provider for corporations and their employees. E*TRADE’s products, innovation in technology, and established brand will help position Morgan Stanley as a top player across all three channels: Financial Advisory, Self-Directed, and Workplace,” said James Gorman, Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. “In addition, this continues the decade-long transition of our Firm to a more balance sheet light business mix, emphasizing more durable sources of revenue.”

    The deal is subject to regulatory approval and approval by E-Trade shareholders. Should everything go as planned, it is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.