Robinhood Markets NASDAQ: HOOD detailed product expansion plans and what executives described as continued customer engagement during its Q1 2026 earnings call, while highlighting a new government partnership and updates across trading, banking, and artificial intelligence initiatives.
Trump Accounts partnership highlighted as “historic milestone”
Chairman and CEO Vlad Tenev opened the call by emphasizing a newly announced role tied to “Trump Accounts,” saying Robinhood will serve as “the broker and sole initial trustee for the Trump Accounts under the direction of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.” Tenev said “over 5.5 million American children are already signed up” and “over 60 million are eligible,” describing the effort as a way to introduce equity ownership to a new generation.
Tenev said the company is partnering with BNY, which he described as “America’s oldest bank,” and noted Robinhood will develop and manage a new Trump Accounts app. He also framed the initiative as a potential step toward building a public sector business, calling it “a new way to extend Robinhood’s mission beyond just retail and institutional to helping governments.”
Later in the call, CFO Shiv Verma said the company expects to “invest an incremental $100 million into building Trump Accounts,” with “approximately half of these in Q2.” Verma added that Robinhood’s work is “contracted on a cost-plus basis with a small margin” and said the company expects “revenues to exceed costs for this project.” As a result of the planned spending, Robinhood raised its full-year 2026 outlook for adjusted operating expenses and stock-based compensation by $100 million to a range of $2.7 billion to $2.825 billion.
Q1 results: revenue growth and deposit momentum
Management reported Q1 total net revenues grew 15% year-over-year to about $1.1 billion. Verma cited “growth across the entire business,” including higher equities and options transaction volumes and “a record quarter for both prediction markets and futures.” He also said growth in interest-earning assets “more than offset the lower short-term interest rates,” while “net interest margin” expanded.
On customer funding, Tenev said net deposits were $18 billion, which he described as “another quarter of 20%+ annualized net deposit growth.” Verma reiterated that annualized net deposit growth is the company’s “North Star KPI,” and said Q2 started positively, with net deposits “already approximately $5 billion month-to-date” in April.
Verma also pointed to profitability metrics, saying the quarter delivered “15% year-over-year revenue growth and 50% adjusted EBITDA margins.” He added that adjusted operating expenses and stock-based compensation were $607 million, coming in below the company’s outlook even after including $14 million of costs related to Rothera and Trump Accounts that were not in prior guidance.
Product roadmap: prediction markets, social features, and banking
Robinhood executives described progress against what Tenev called a three-part strategy: “number one in active traders,” “number one in wallet share for the next generation,” and a longer-term goal to build a “number one global financial ecosystem.”
On active trading, Tenev said the company saw “record levels across prediction markets, futures, index options, shorting, and margin,” alongside “double-digit year-over-year growth in equity and option volumes.” He also said the company is preparing for a Q2 launch of its joint venture exchange with Susquehanna, called Rothera. Tenev described the move as vertical integration that should provide “end-to-end control of the customer experience,” including “product selection and pricing.”
Asked about the prediction markets landscape, Tenev said he expects consolidation among the many exchanges pursuing CFTC registration, arguing “there’s not a lot of differentiation” among new entrants. He said Robinhood’s advantage includes its retail scale—“27 million funded accounts in the U.S.”—and the partnership with a major market maker through Rothera.
On Robinhood Social, Tenev said the feature has been rolled out to the first 10,000 customers and that users “absolutely love verified profiles” and “verified returns and trades.” He said the team is adding features requested by early users, including “live stock charts,” “expanded personal profiles,” and “tools to find other traders,” and that the product should “approach general availability in the coming months.”
On wallet share initiatives, Tenev said customers added 500,000 funded accounts in Q1 and more than 1.5 million over the past year across offerings such as retirement, Gold Card, strategies, and banking. He highlighted Robinhood Banking, saying it grew “5x since the last earnings,” with “over $2 billion in net deposits,” more than 125,000 funded customers, and a “40% direct deposit attach rate,” which he said suggests customers are using it as a primary bank account.
Tenev also reported Gold credit cards surpassed 800,000 customers, with annualized purchase volume of $15 billion, and said the company is “on track to surpass 1 million cards and $100 million ARR this year.” He added that demand for a new Platinum Card has exceeded expectations, with rollout expected “in the coming months.”
AI initiatives, private markets access, and customer growth focus
Management repeatedly emphasized AI as a driver of both customer-facing tools and internal productivity. Tenev said Robinhood Cortex has been used by “nearly 1 million customers so far,” and that Cortex Assistant has rolled out to all Gold customers. Verma said the company previously disclosed “9-figure efficiency benefits” in engineering and customer support and noted that “over 90% of our employees are already using AI tooling.” He added that commits per engineer hit a new high in Q1 and are “up 50% since the start of last year.”
Tenev also tied AI to Robinhood’s private markets ambitions. He said Robinhood Ventures’ first fund “had its IPO in March” and that the portfolio recently added OpenAI. He said the company has begun building the portfolio for a next fund, RVII, in response to customer demand for access to emerging AI companies at earlier stages.
In Q&A, Verma said Robinhood is increasing its “focus on top-of-funnel customer growth,” allocating more investment toward adding customers in the U.S. and internationally. Tenev said opportunities include simplifying onboarding, organizing the growing set of products for customers, and continuing marketing efforts he described as “very high ROI.”
Regulatory and market commentary: day trading rule change and evolving trading mix
Asked about the “pattern day trader elimination,” Tenev called the rule “vestigial and kind of outdated,” arguing it wrongly ties sophistication to account size. He said the policy change is “a great step by FINRA,” and that the company is “ready to go” with updated logic.
On customer resilience amid volatility, Verma said Q1 net deposits held up despite what he described as a challenging macro start to the year, pointing to product diversification and active trader tools such as index options and shorting. He said prediction markets volume in April was on track for “around $3 billion” and “probably our second-highest month ever,” while crypto activity in April was “about similar to what it was in Q1.”
Verma also addressed securities lending, saying program adoption remained healthy—about “25% of customers” opted into fully paid lending and “about 50% of assets”—but that securities lending net results were pressured by lower “specials rebates” tied to lower volatility and fewer IPOs. He said it is “hard to predict” rebate-rate dynamics later in the year.
On capital allocation, Verma said the company repurchased “over $300 million” of stock so far this year and that the board refreshed repurchase authorization to $1.5 billion.
About Robinhood Markets NASDAQ: HOOD
Robinhood Markets, Inc NASDAQ: HOOD is a U.S.-based financial services company best known for its mobile-first brokerage platform that aims to "democratize finance for all." Founded in 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company built early traction by offering commission-free trading and a simplified user experience that attracted a large base of retail investors.
Robinhood's core products and services include a mobile app and web platform for trading U.S.
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