The GameStop Corp. logo on a laptop computer and Robinhood application on a smartphone.
Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Robinhood will continue to limit trading on Monday in short-squeeze names like GameStop that have experienced explosive rallies and unprecedented volatility over the past week.
Customers can only buy one share of GameStop’s stock and five options contracts. However, the millennial-favored stock trading app did cut down its list of restricted stocks from as many as 50 on Friday to eight starting Monday.
“The table below shows the maximum number of shares and options contracts to which you can increase your positions,” Robinbood said in a updated help center message Sunday. “These limits may be subject to change throughout the day.”
Source: Robinhood
The eight names are GameStop, AMC Entertainment, BlackBerry, Koss, Express, Nokia, Genius Brands International and Naked Brand Group. Robinhood is also limiting buying of options contracts in those securities.
If traders already hold more shares or contracts than the limits listed above, their positions will not be sold or closed, but they will not be able to open new positions, Robinhood said.
The move to extend restrictions came after Robinhood revealed that the central Wall Street clearinghouse mandated a ten-fold increase in the firm’s deposit requirements last week to ensure orderly settlements. Clearinghouses seek to protect investors and the markets by making sure that brokerages have the funds needed for trade settlement, a process that takes two days.
The firm also raised margin requirements, or the amount of money in a client’s account when they will be using leverage to buy a security.
The popular trading platform tapped credit lines and raised $1 billion new funds from investors to meet the clearinghouse requirements last week.
A speculative buying frenzy swept Wall Street last week as a new wave of stay-at-home traders continue to use social media, in this case Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, to coordinate massive short squeezes. Shares of GameStop, a struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer, skyrocketed 400% in the past week, closing out January with a 1,625% rally. AMC soared 277% last week, while Koss ripped more than 1,800% higher.
Many on Wall Street grew increasingly worried that this retail mania will cause more pain for brokers like Robinhood and the short squeezes will force big hedge funds to sell other positions to raise cash, creating turmoil in the broader market.
Stock futures were down in early trading Sunday.
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The millennial-favored stock trading app has cut down its list of restricted stocks from as many as 50 on Friday to eight starting Monday.