Regulatory Delays Will Undercut Tokenized Asset Momentum

Key Takeaways

• Shifting customer interests and regulatory uncertainty around alternative assets may constrain Robinhood's future growth and product adoption momentum.
  
• Intensifying competition, higher marketing costs, and rising compliance expenses may compress margins and limit revenue generation per user.
  
• Diversification into new financial products and international markets is driving resilient revenue growth, stronger customer relationships, operational efficiency, and robust recurring earnings streams.

Catalysts

Operates financial services platform in the United States.

• The current valuation may be assuming continued explosive growth in young, tech-savvy trader engagement and wallet share, but there are emerging signs that demographic interest may shift away from traditional equities towards alternative assets, crypto, or even decentralized finance, which would constrain Robinhood's long-term revenue growth and customer base expansion.
  
• The rapid expansion into tokenized assets and alternative asset classes relies on regulatory progress; any delay or reversal in U.S. or European tokenization, staking, or crypto-related legislation could materially slow new product momentum and dampen future top-line revenue growth.
  
• Despite significant diversification into products like banking, lending, and credit cards, Robinhood's ability to generate high revenue per user may be limited by persistent margin compression from increased competition, especially as traditional brokers and fintechs replicate commission-free features and ramp their own digital offerings.
  
• Scaling in-house infrastructure and technological innovation, while currently supporting efficiency and strong net margins, may be underestimating future increases in compliance costs or technological investment necessitated by regulatory scrutiny, which could put pressure on net earnings and operational leverage.
  
• Renewed focus on marketing spend and promotions to accelerate net deposits and asset inflows could drive customer acquisition costs higher and compress near-term margins, especially if customer trading activity or product adoption rates falter, leading to earnings volatility not reflected in the current elevated valuation.

Robinhood Markets Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• Analysts are assuming Robinhood Markets's revenue will grow by 14.0% annually over the next 3 years.
• Analysts assume that profit margins will shrink from 50.1% today to 34.4% in 3 years time.
• Analysts expect earnings to remain at the same level they are now, that being $1.8 billion (with an earnings per share of $1.88). However, there is a considerable amount of disagreement amongst the analysts with the most bullish expecting $2.9 billion in earnings, and the most bearish expecting $1.1 billion.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 71.4x on those 2028 earnings, up from 58.9x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Capital Markets industry at 26.7x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 0.53% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.36%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Robinhood Markets Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• The ongoing diversification of Robinhood's product offerings-including the expansion into banking, retirement accounts, credit cards, crypto staking, option products, and tokenized assets-positions the company to tap into a broader addressable market and multiple recurring revenue streams, which may drive resilient top-line growth and higher revenue per user.
  
• Sustainable growth in assets under custody (AUC) and average customer balances (which nearly doubled year-over-year) indicates a strengthening long-term customer relationship, with customers entrusting Robinhood with increasingly significant portions of their net worth, supporting future revenue expansion and increased net deposits.
  
• Robust scaling and efficiency gains in Robinhood's operations-reflected by the company's ability to grow revenue 45% year-over-year while keeping adjusted operating expenses nearly flat and achieving record-high EBITDA margins-could enable continued margin expansion and growing net earnings over the long term.
  
• The company's early leadership and innovation in areas such as tokenization of real-world assets, integrated global crypto trading, and the development of Robinhood Chain have the potential to attract new user bases both in the U.S. and internationally, opening up entirely new markets and revenue sources that could outpace legacy competitors.
  
• The rapid growth of recurring revenue businesses such as Robinhood Gold and the expanding international user base (including through acquisitions like Bitstamp and WonderFi) are indicative of business model resilience, less sensitivity to market cyclicality, and an increasing potential for stable, high-margin earnings streams.

Valuation

• The analysts have a consensus price target of $113.086 for Robinhood Markets based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $160.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $50.0.
• In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $5.3 billion, earnings will come to $1.8 billion, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 71.4x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.4%.
• Given the current share price of $118.5, the analyst price target of $113.09 is 4.8% lower. The relatively low difference between the current share price and the analyst consensus price target indicates that they believe on average, the company is fairly priced.
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.