Robinhood Reports Record Overnight Trading Volume, 400 Million 2024 Election Contracts Traded

Stocks and cryptocurrencies saw heavy action during the after-hours trading session during the 2024 election thanks to the expansion of 24-hour trading at companies like Robinhood Markets HOOD, which sees the extended hours as a key user growth item moving forward.

Here's a look at the top trading tickers and cryptocurrencies on Tuesday night.

What Happened: Investors closely watched the stock market and cryptocurrencies as Donald Trump pulled ahead in the 2024 election and was declared the winner by the Associated Press in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Years ago, investors would have had to wait until the stock market opened to start buying their favorite stocks linked to a potential Trump win, but that wasn't the case Tuesday night.

As Trump pulled ahead in the race, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group DJT, a media company the president co-founded, surged ahead. Electric vehicle company Tesla Inc TSLA also gained significantly, fueled by CEO Elon Musk's close ties with Trump and the expectation that the incoming administration may create a more favorable environment for Tesla, potentially challenging its competitors and boosting its share price outlook.

Robinhood reported its largest overnight session since launching the 24-hour market. This included the company's recently launched 2024 election contracts passing a milestone of 400 million contracts traded.

The company reported the 100 million contract milestone ahead of the election and later reported that the figure had doubled to 200 million around one day later. A total of over 500,000 Robinhood users traded election contracts according to the company.

Trading volume Tuesday night was around 11 times more than the company's usual overnight volume from 8 p.m. ET to 4 a.m. ET.

Here were the top 10 traded stocks and ETFs Tuesday night during the overnight trading session, according to Robinhood. The company did not specify the leaders in volume order, so they are listed below in alphabetical order by ticker:

• Coinbase Global COIN
• Trump Media & Technology Group DJT
• iShares Bitcoin Trust IBIT
• MicroStrategy Inc MSTR
• NVIDIA Corporation NVDA
• Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ
• SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY
• Tesla Inc TSLA
• Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares TSLL
• ProShares UltraPro QQQ TQQQ

Robinhood also reported that the top three traded cryptocurrencies Tuesday night, in no particular order, were Bitcoin BTC/USD, Dogecoin DOGE/USD, and Ethereum ETH/USD.

Did You Know?

• Congress Is Making Huge Investments. Get Tips On What They Bought And Sold Ahead Of The 2024 Election With Our Easy-to-Use Tool

Why It's Important: The heavy volume from Robinhood came as many expected potential volatility in after-hours and extended-hours trading for brokerages that offer these services to their customers.

"We don't expect to have any issues at this point in time," an Interactive Brokers spokesperson told Bloomberg ahead of the election. "We've seen heavy trading volumes on the exchange with over 50 million presidential contracts traded today."

Like Robinhood and others, Interactive Brokers IBKR offered 2024 election contracts through its ForecastEx LLC subsidiary. From Oct. 4 through the end of the day on Nov. 4, Interactive Brokers saw over 220 million 2024 election contracts traded, the company said.  

The inclusion of election contract trading and having cryptocurrencies on the platform likely contributed to Robinhood's record night.

The list of 10 tickers above shows that several of them (COIN, IBIT, MSTR) were related to the cryptocurrency sector. Bitcoin hit all-time highs of $75,361.09 Wednesday morning and traded higher during the run-up to Trump’s declaration as the victor of the 2024 election.

Several brokers offer 24-hour trading of stocks and ETFs. Charles Schwab Corp SCHW recently announced that it would expand 24-hour trading to all stocks in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes in 2025.

The New York Stock Exchange, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange ICE, is looking to extend trading hours of the Arca Exchange to 22 hours a day from 1:30 a.m. ET to 11:30 p.m. ET subject to regulatory approval.

The 2024 election may change many things going forward, including the likelihood that investors will have more options to trade stocks, ETFs and cryptocurrencies more hours in the day.

HOOD Price Action: Robinhood stock is up 18.6% to $29.62 on Wednesday, hitting new 52-week highs of $29.27 early in the trading session. The stock is up 139% year-to-date in 2024.

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