Robinhood Bets on 24/7 Trading and AI Agents for Active Traders

Robinhood will let customers trade certain U.S. equities 24 hours a day, seven days a week starting next year, the company announced Tuesday evening at its HOOD Summit in Houston, Texas. The move extends the 24/5 trading feature the brokerage rolled out in 2023, which opened trading from Sunday at 8:00 PM ET to Friday at 8:00 PM ET.

The announcement was one piece of a broader push to win active traders who want market access beyond traditional U.S. stock exchange hours. Alongside expanded hours, Robinhood said it will add cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts to its app and introduce AI-powered automated trading tools that let users build their own trading agents.

Investors reacted quickly. Robinhood shares jumped 3% in early trading Wednesday following the news.

"Tools once reserved for hedge funds"

CEO Vlad Tenev framed the strategy as a democratization of institutional-grade infrastructure. "Ownership doesn't work without markets, and markets don't work without traders," Tenev said in a statement. "We're making Robinhood the best place in the world for active traders by delivering tools once reserved for hedge funds, big banks, and quant firms."

The AI tools build on the company's earlier move into agentic trading, launched earlier this year. The new offering lets customers construct their own agents that automate parts of the trading process. The stated goal is to enable around-the-clock strategies — a natural fit with trading hours that will soon run through weekends.

Crypto perpetuals enter the app

Robinhood also unveiled plans to offer crypto perpetual futures contracts directly in the Robinhood app. Perpetuals provide leveraged exposure to cryptocurrencies without requiring traders to hold the underlying assets. For a brokerage that built its brand on commission-free stock trading, adding leveraged crypto derivatives marks a significant expansion of the risk profile it offers retail customers.

Why it matters

The announcements reflect Robinhood's evolution beyond its commission-free stock-trading roots as it seeks to become a more comprehensive platform for active traders. That strategy places the company in direct competition on two fronts.

On one side are crypto-native platforms like Coinbase, which has expanded into derivatives and other financial products. On the other are traditional brokerages like Schwab, which added 24/7 trading in select cryptocurrency futures on its thinkorswim platform this year.

The competitive stakes go beyond individual product launches. As firms vie for customers who trade across a wider range of markets and hours, competition among retail brokerages is shifting away from low trading costs and toward access, speed and automation. Robinhood's 24/7 equities, perpetual futures and AI agents target all three of those dimensions at once.

For the active traders Robinhood is courting, the changes mean the distinction between market hours and personal time largely disappears. For the company, the bet is that round-the-clock access combined with automated execution will keep traders — and their activity levels — inside the Robinhood app rather than on rival platforms.

If the strategy works, Robinhood becomes less a beginner's brokerage and more an always-on trading venue with institutional-style tooling. If it does not, the company will have repositioned itself in the most contested segment of the retail trading market.