Why Robinhood and Coinbase gained ground after reporting earnings

You’d be forgiven for expecting public fintech companies that facilitate consumer trading to be under pressure this week. And yet, after reporting earnings, the share prices of two pandemic-era highfliers gained ground. Coinbase and Robinhood up? In this economy? Yes.

Of the out-of-fashion tech sectors, consumer trading has to be among the most out of favor. And yet.

TechCrunch wanted to better understand investor response to results from both Coinbase (crypto-focused) and Robinhood (equities-focused) to figure out what drove each company’s shares higher in the wake of their reports. The answers, it turns out, are partially related.

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In an ironic twist, some of the forces that have made consumer trading less attractive are the very same impulses helping the two companies derive more revenue from a previously less-critical part of their business. The Federal Reserve taketh away, and the Fed also giveth some back.