Robinhood To Add 250 Foreign Stocks To Commission-Free Trading Platform

Robinhood is making some 250 notable foreign stocks available for trading on its commission-free platform.

What Happened

Companies like Tencent Holding/ADR (OTC: TCEHY), Burberry Group plc (OTC: BURBY), Heineken N.V. (ADR) (OTC: HEINY), BMW, Nintendo Ltd/Adr (OTC: NTDOY) and adidas AG (ADR) (OTC: ADDYY) will be added in what Robinhood said is the biggest addition of new securities since the app launched three years ago.

"We looked at what customers were searching for and not getting," Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev told CNBC. "It allows customers to get some exposure outside of the U.S."

Why It's Important

The 250 equities that will be added have appeared in over 300,000 Robinhood searches to date, with Tencent appearing in 63,000 searches, followed by Nintendo with 34,000 and Adidas with 29,000, according to the trading platform.

Robinhood made a similar move when it added cryptocurrency trading on the platform after customers began searching for bitcoin.

"Our strategy has always been listen to the customer, and work on building new products to make their lives easier," Tenev said.

What's Next

In the coming months, French ADRs will be added to Robinhood, including UBISOFT Entmt S/ADR (OTC: UBSFY), LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA Unsponsored ADR (OTC: LVMUY) and Michelin COMPAG/ADR (OTC: MGDDY).

The move comes as competition in the brokerage space is starting to heat up after JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) announced its own commission-free trading platform.

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Photo courtesy of Robinhood.