Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) Carries on despite Alphabet’s Departure

It was likely only a matter of time before this happened, but now that it actually has, trading app Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) is doing surprisingly well. In fact, it’s up fractionally in Monday morning’s trading despite the fact that Google’s parent company, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), no longer has a stake in Robinhood.

What’s the Latest News About HOOD Stock?

Alphabet previously held a substantial stake in Robinhood but sold off around 90% of that stake not so long ago. That reduced Alphabet’s stake to a reported 612,214 shares. Alphabet was drawn to Robinhood back when it was comparatively unknown but had managed to bottle the lightning of retail traders with a stock trading app that was both easy to use and required no commissions to make trades.

But after the pandemic stimulus checks stopped coming and the economy started to sour under growing inflation, the retail traders pulled back and that left Robinhood a much less attractive proposition.

However, not all those retail traders left. In fact, there’s a growing clamor on Robinhood for the trading platform to bring in Bone ShibaSwap, a token that serves as the primary governance token of Shibarium. It’s closely connected to the popular Shiba Inu token, which is something of an offshoot of Dogecoin (DOGE-USD). Reports suggest there is substantial interest in Bone ShibaSwap, with several investors already expressing their interest in buying in should Robinhood make the token available.

Is Robinhood a Buy or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on HOOD stock based on two Buys, seven Holds, and three Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 13.18% loss in its share price over the past year, the average HOOD price target of $12.05 per share implies 44.74% upside potential.

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