by Fred Fuld III
Last Thursday, Robinhood (HOOD) went public at an IPO price of $38 per share. The stock sold off a little that first day, but today, the stock reached a price per share of $85 shortly after the stock market opened.
This works out to a 123% gain in one week. Not too shabby for a recent IPO.
Even if you had waited until yesterday to buy the stock on the close at $48.50, the gain would be 75%.
Robinhood has almost turned into a meme stock, not due to a short squeeze but do to the popularity of the stock, as it has garnered much attention on Reddit.
Options started trading on the stock today, and the volume and activity is huge. The strike prices range from 20 to 95 for all expirations from August to January of next year. Will higher strikes need to be added? Who knows? Maybe even lower strikes.
The August implied volatility is over 200% and September is in excess of 170%.
It will be interesting to see if Robinhood turns into another GameStop (GME) or AMC (AMC), or if it takes you for a RIDE.
Disclosure: Author owns two shares of HOOD.