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While the rest of us just got heart palpitations, trading platforms received a serious boost from all the market chaos that ensued after that fateful Liberation Day on April 2.
Just look at Interactive Brokers, which surged 6% on Friday after announcing its customer accounts rose 32% last quarter to reach 3.87 million, helping the brokerage handily beat top and bottom line earnings expectations. Overall, the company is up 40.94% year to date, far outpacing the broader market’s increase of 7.28%.
Or take Charles Schwab, which announced it opened over 1 million new brokerage accounts last quarter, giving the company a 23% boost in trading revenue. That wasn’t all—its profit climbed 60% in Q2 after the market chaos enabled it to rake in higher fees. Shares are up 28.84% in 2025.
And while Robinhood isn’t set to report earnings until next Wednesday, investors anticipate a windfall: Its stock closed at an all-time high on Friday, and has climbed over 173% this year so far.
Zoom out: Turns out it wasn’t just Wall Street bigwigs who were rapidly buying and selling stocks like their lives depended on it in April, ushering in record profits for the titans of Wall Street. Retail traders were buying the dip, too: The retail crowd dumped roughly $30 billion into US stocks and exchange-traded funds in the weeks following Liberation Day, according to Bloomberg, including $3 billion worth of new assets on just April 3 alone.
Everyday investors have more power than ever
All this good news for retail trading points to a larger trend: Retail traders have become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to moving the market. That’s why brokerages eager to bring new traders through the door and keep investors investing have gamified their offerings—literally.
These days, brokerages aren’t just offering a style of investing that some compare to gambling—they’re actually letting users gamble on literally anything.
This will surely all end well, right? Wanna bet?—LB