Robinhood shares spike 30% after Sam Bankman-Fried buys $650M stake

cointelegraph.com:

Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has acquired a substantial 7.6% stake in the popular online brokerage, Robinhood. 

The news was well received by the market, with Robinhood’s (HOOD) stock price initially soaring over 30% in after hours trading. At the time of writing the price has settled to a 24% overall gain.

According to a securities filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Bankman-Fried purchased a total of $648 million in Robinhood shares at an average price of $11.52. The purchases disclosed by Bankman-Fried reportedly began in mid-March and continued through until Wednesday.

In the securities filing, Bankman-Fried made it clear that he had, “no intention of taking any action toward changing or influencing the control of [Robinhood],” and that the move was simply because he saw Robinhood as an “attractive investment.”

Robinhood’s communications team took to Twitter to emulate what Bankman-Fried said in his securities filing — tweeting to their 82,000 followers, “Of course we think it is an attractive investment too.”

Of course we think it is an attractive investment too. We have the best customer base, are introducing great new products, and we have the team to deliver.

The transaction was executed by an Antiguan firm called Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd, of which Bankman-fried is the sole director and majority owner.

The announcement seems to have provided Robinhood investors with some short-term relief, after its stock price reached a new all time low of $7.73 on March 12, just one day after the brokerage firm revealed that its crypto transaction revenue fell 39% year-over-year (YOY).

Robinhood has been taking significant strides into the