FINTECH

Robinhood Knows a Thing or Three About Raising Money

The stock trading startup Robinhood announced a $200 million Series G round yesterday, continuing its march through the fundraising alphabet. Robinhood’s updated 2020 funding report:

• May: $280 million raised
• July: $320 million raised
• Yesterday: $200 million raised

Know your brokerage: Robinhood rose to prominence by offering users a hassle-free signup process, sleek design, and zero-fee trading. Its latest round of funding values it at $11.2 billion, up almost $3 billion from May and nearly 9x its 2017 valuation.   

What’s behind the growth?

Robinhood is adding users faster than people who live alone in NYC add house plants. The company said it surpassed 13 million users in May, 3 million of which had jumped aboard since the start of 2020. And it’s making money off trades at a faster rate than its competitors, too. 

• In June, Robinhood traders carried out 4.3 million “daily average revenue trades,” a key metric used by brokerages. That topped TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers and exceeded the combined total of E-Trade and Charles Schwab. 

Keep a firm grip on those horses of yours

Robinhood’s key selling point is that it makes trading accessible to a wider range of people. But after a Robinhood user died by suicide in June when he saw a negative $730,000 balance in his account, critics pointed out that Robinhood may encourage reckless financial decisions by overly gamifying options trading. 

• Also slowing the Robinhood hype train: outages on one of the busiest trading days of the year and a postponed rollout in the UK. 

Looking ahead...Robinhood’s latest fundraising round has investors wondering when it will finally go public. But eye-popping user growth ≠ profitability. Robinhood probably still operates at a loss as it pumps money back into the company and explores revenue streams beyond its core brokerage business. Two potential options: retirement planning and peer-to-peer money transfers. “We believe that if you’re going to have a single app on your phone, we want Robinhood to be the money app,” Robinhood’s COO told Barron's.

HIGHER ED

UNC You Next Semester

One week into the fall semester, the University of North Carolina announced it’s canceling in-person instruction and moving undergraduate programs online. 

UNC has reported four COVID-19 clusters across residence halls and a frat house, with at least 130 students testing positive in the last week. 

Was this inevitable? The Daily Tar Heel editorial board didn't hold back in criticizing UNC for reopening without following CDC and county health recommendations: "We all saw this coming. But university leadership should have expected students, many of whom are now living on their own for the first time, to be reckless."

• Before the semester started, 30 tenured faculty members wrote a letter to students telling them to stay home because “it is not safe for you to come to campus.”

Zoom out: UNC’s pivot is a red flag for schools across the country that have been watching closely and bracing for outbreaks as students return. At Oklahoma State, an entire sorority is in quarantine after 23 members tested positive. And last week, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Howard also moved instruction online.

ENERGY

Trump Goes Where No Pres Has Drilled Before

Yesterday, the Trump administration approved plans to allow drilling on 1.6 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the first time the South Carolina-sized wilderness will open for oil and gas extraction. 

Alaska’s governor said up to 11.8 billion barrels could be tapped, and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt called it “a new chapter in American energy independence.” 

• It’s rare positive news for an industry walloped by the pandemic. Oil prices are at 15-year lows, global supplies are overflowing, and fossil fuel companies are going bankrupt. 

That’s not counting the controversy

Republicans have tried sliding onto polar bears’ home turf for decades, but Democrats blocked their efforts... 

...until 2017, when the GOP tax bill included a provision allowing lease sales in the refuge. The administration expedited the environmental review and appointed an adviser who allegedly sidelined environmental concerns. 

• Sierra Club’s Lena Moffitt called the process “a sham from the start.” 
• Opponents say drilling will harm local wildlife and Alaska’s indigenous population. 

Looking ahead...when the government starts locking in leases soon, it’ll be harder for challengers to delay or undo plans in court. 

SPONSORED BY POLICYGENIUS

Early Bird Gets the Worm

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“Huh? Aren’t we a little too young for life insurance?” we asked.

But the bird flew away, and we were left pondering its significance as a strand of gray hair began to sprout and our knees began to hurt.

Maybe this bird was on to something…

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Their team handles the paperwork and red tape at no extra cost. You could save up to 40% (that's $1,500 or more per year) by comparing life insurance options with Policygenius.

But you don’t have to take the advice of copywriters who talk to birds. Talk to the experts at Policygenius and get a free quote today. 

Learn more here. 

HOUSING

Bob Is Loving This Housing Market

As the pandemic squeezed most people’s lives into the confines of their living spaces, homeowners, homebuyers, and homebuilders have each been affected in different ways.  

Builders are pumped: An index measuring homebuilder sentiment matched its highest level ever yesterday. Why? There is a healthy amount of demand from buyers and not enough homes to meet it. 

• Also, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate bottomed out at 2.88% in August, the lowest point on record. Those low borrowing rates are boosting homebuyers' appetites.  

Many owners are less pumped: With the unemployment rate still in the double digits, fewer homeowners are able to meet their mortgage payments. Residential mortgage delinquency rates posted their largest-ever quarterly increase in Q2, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, jumping to over 8%. 

Zoom out: The home improvement industry has been surging the last few months. Per Unacast, daily foot traffic at Home Depot since April is up at least 35% over last year, while Lowe’s reported 11.2% comparable sales growth in the spring quarter. Both retailers report earnings this week.

FOOD & BEV

Ryan Reynolds Is #Ginning

What do Ryan Reynolds, George Clooney, and 17th century Welsh privateer Sir Henry Morgan have in common? They’ve all benefited handsomely from liquor brands. 

Reynolds, the voice of Pikachu and co-owner of Aviation American Gin, agreed to sell his company to British spirits giant Diageo yesterday, which scooped up a few other liquor brands in a deal worth up to $610 million.

• The details: $335 million will arrive when the deal closes, with the remaining $275 million paid out over 10 years based on performance. 

Now back to the celebrities 

They’re getting very rich off of liquor. George Clooney is the ultimate case study after selling the Casamigos tequila brand he cofounded to Diageo for up to $1 billion in 2017. Other celebs including actors The Rock, Shay Mitchell, and Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have recently launched their own alcohol lines to capitalize on the movement. 

Pulse check on the gin industry: growing fast in Europe, still trending up in the U.S. 

Looking ahead...which actor is going to launch a spiked seltzer brand? 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Louis DeJoy, the U.S. postmaster general and subject of the recent firestorm over the USPS, agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee next Monday. 
• The Washington Football Team hired Jason Wright as its president. He’ll become the first Black team president in NFL history.
• The Trump administration is expanding restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei. 
• New York will allow gyms and fitness centers to reopen next Monday with 33% capacity and other restrictions.
• American Express is buying Kabbage, a fintech company providing financial services to small businesses.
• Small businesses are reopening at a promising clip, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs.

BREW'S BETS

If online shopping were a professional sport, we’d be on Team Honey. The small-but-mighty browser extension from Paypal scours the internet for coupons, then automatically applies them at checkout. Honey: 1. Full Price: 0. Join Honey today.*

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Dive deeper on the market: One of the best ways to do that is TradingView, which mixes top-tier market analysis, data and broker integrations, and a finance-focused social network into one seamless experience. Check it out for free.

Tech Tip Tuesday: When you’re typing on an iPhone, you can quickly hunt down and fix typos by holding the space bar as you move the cursor to the correct spot. Here are other keyboard tricks for iPhones, plus a guide on how to swap your Samsung Galaxy keyboard.

Unfinished business: Women were granted the right to vote 100 years ago today...

• But most Americans think the U.S. hasn’t gone far enough to ensure women have equal rights, according to a recent Pew study.
• NYT columnist Gail Collins also argues women's suffrage hasn't brought about the change some thought it would. 
• The NYT charted one historian’s journey to find out if her Black grandmother cast a ballot.

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FROM THE CREW

Own the Morning: Amanda Hesser

In this week’s edition of Own the Morning, we talk to food impresario Amanda Hesser. Chances are if you’ve eaten something delicious in the last decade, at least some of it is thanks to Amanda. Quick bio:

• Cofounder and CEO of the culinary hub Food52
• Author of a bestselling NYT cookbook
• Made a cameo as herself in the Nora Ephron film Julie & Julia

We slid into Amanda’s DMs to ask her about the food media industry, how she owns the morning, and most importantly, her favorite fast food burgers. 

3 things you do in the morning that are essential to starting your day off right.

1) Make our bed 2) drink a large glass of room temperature water 3) put on perfume (Rose Of No Man's Land by Byredo).

1 thing you do in the morning that other people definitely don’t do.

This is embarrassing for a food person to admit and I appreciate you not judging, but my husband makes cold brew and I heat it in the microwave.

1 thing about your industry no one outside of it understands.

How much work goes into developing and photographing a recipe.

1 thing you are snobby about.

I'm particular about kitchen countertops—how much stuff is on them, how it's arranged. Also particular about pantries, and how food is stored and organized. Your kitchen and pantry should feel calming and welcoming, not like a grocery store exploded in it.

Rank these: Five Guys, In-N-Out, Shake Shack

Shake Shack, In-N-Out, then Five Guys off in the distance.

AMENDMENT FILL IN THE BLANK ANSWERS

2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia..." 

8th Amendment: "...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

18th Amendment: "...the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors..." 

26th Amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote..."