It’s common on social media sites like Reddit for users to share what stocks they are buying and selling. For better or worse, this activity serves as inspiration for others to imitate what those traders are doing and, in Europe, this so-called “copy trading” is baked right into brokerage platforms. On Wednesday, Robinhood began rolling out its version of this feature, which it calls Robinhood Social, to select users.
“Customers will be able to follow other Robinhood traders, swap strategies, discuss market moves, and trade with clarity. Plus, they can trust that every customer profile belongs to a real person, verified through KYC,” said the company in a blog post, announcing the beta launch of the tool.
Robinhood is taking a go-slow approach to the feature, which it announced last year, in part due to regulatory uncertainty over copy trading. Specifically, there are concerns that accounts endorsing stocks could be viewed as the sort of advice that, under U.S. laws, can only be dispensed by registered advisors. Meanwhile, there are broader concerns that social influencer style financial accounts are being operated under fictitious accounts in order to manipulate markets—a familiar concern on platforms like Reddit or X where some users talk up stocks or cryptocurrencies, or share doctored screenshots purporting to show their trades.
Robinhood is seeking to mitigate these concerns by building the initial version of its Social offerings around a relatively small community of users with verified identities, and encouraging thoughtful discussion about investments rather than hucksterism and hype. To this end, it is extending invitations to only 1000 customers this week, and to an additional 10,000 customers in the near future.
A spokesperson for Robinhood said the company anticipates rolling out the Social feature to all users by the end of the year.
When it comes to imitating the trading behavior of others on the platform, Robinhood’s offering won’t be as free-wheeling as the European version of copy-trading popularized by eToro. Namely, customers won’t be able to automate their trades to copy a Social user, but will be able to do so manually.
“This is an important early milestone for Robinhood Social, but it’s just the beginning,” said Abhishek Fatehpuria, VP of Product Management at Robinhood in a statement, describing the initial launch. “Beta allows us to learn quickly and build thoughtfully, prioritizing quality, trust, and feedback from our most active traders.”