Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev testified before Congress in a virtual hearing. (Photo: Bloomberg)
Robinhood's decision on Jan. 28 to restrict buying in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks heavily traded by retail investors was driven by regulatory requirements, and hedge funds Melvin Capital and Citadel Securities played no role in that decision, Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood Markets, told lawmakers Thursday.
"Robinhood Securities put the restrictions in place in an effort to meet increased regulatory deposit requirements, not to help hedge funds," Tenev told members of the House Financial Services Committee. "We don't answer to hedge funds."
Both Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel LLC, and Gabriel Plotkin, CEO of Melvin Capital Management, also testified before the committee that they had no role in Robinhood's decision to restrict trades.
"I want to be perfectly clear: we had no role in Robinhood's decision to limit trading in GameStop or any of the other meme stocks," Griffin said, adding that he "first learned of Robinhood's trading restrictions only after they were publicly announced."
Melvin Capital "played absolutely no role in those trading platform decisions," Plotkin added. "In fact, Melvin closed out all of its positions in GameStop days before the platforms put those limitations in place. Like you, we learned about those limits through news reports."
Robinhood receives payment from a number of market makers in exchange for order flow; the largest share by far of these payments comes from Citadel. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Robinhood received $196.5 million from Citadel in payment for order flow , according to The Economist.
In her opening remarks, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said she held the hearing to find out "how each of the witnesses here today, and the companies they represent, contributed to the historic trading events in January."
The recent market volatility tied to GameStop and other stocks "has put a national spotlight on institutional practices by Wall Street firms, and prompted discussion about the evolving role of technology and social media in our markets," Waters said.
The trading event has also "illuminated potential conflicts of interest and the predatory ways that certain funds operate, and they have demonstrated the enormous potential power of social media in our markets," Waters continued, and have "raised issues involving gamification of trading, potential harm to retail investors, and the business models of apps with retail investors as their users."
