Robinhood - July 28, 2025

Talkin’ Blox

How Roblox outbuilt the market, and what its CEO says is coming...

Presented by

Hey Snackers,

The US government is now accepting Venmo “gifts” to reduce the national debt. This program, which has been around since 1961, received $1 million in 2022. For context, America spent more than $880 billion on interest payments on the debt alone last year.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, notching its fifth consecutive record close after a week of strong earnings results and optimism around new US trade agreements. The Nasdaq 100 gained 0.2% to a record-high close, while the Russell 2000 was up 0.4%. Materials was the best-performing S&P 500 sector, lifted by Newmont, whose shares gained 6.8% after the gold-mining giant posted blowout Q2 results on the back of strong bullion prices.

🧠 Trivia time: Test your knowledge of recent stories with our Snacks Seven Quiz. Here’s a sample question:

What is America’s favorite city?
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EXCLUSIVE

How Roblox outbuilt the market, and what its CEO says is coming next

Roblox is an $80 billion business that has tripled in the stock market over the past year, become the target of a prolific short seller, and been the subject of intense scrutiny over concerns about kids’ safety on the platform.

And its CEO didn’t even mean to start a kid-focused company. It just happened along the way.

“When we started Roblox, the vision — the long-term vision — was: to what extent could we simulate 3D reality? It takes incredible technical innovation to get there. It’s very different than downloading a game. It’s very different than streaming video. It’s the fabric of the metaverse,” CEO David Baszucki told Sherwood News. “It just so happens, games overlap a lot with reality simulators.”
It’s one of the hottest stocks, having garnered significant engagement from the retail trading crowd. Its shares have risen about 200% in the past year, far outpacing the S&P 500’s increase of 17% over the same time frame.
This spring, when the platform saw a new peak of 12.5 million concurrent players, a Roblox board member told us, “That is 173 NFL football stadiums, full, playing Roblox at the same time!” Since then, a spokesperson says, it’s hit 30 million concurrent players.
The company pulled in $3.6 billion of revenue last year, growth of 29% from the prior year. It has a goal of capturing 10% of the world’s video game activity; execs figure they’re at 2.4% right now.

Whether it will become a profitable business still remains to be seen. Roblox posted a net loss of $935.4 million last year, and it has yet to produce an annual profit — or even a single profitable quarter — since it went public in early 2021.

THE TAKEAWAY

Baszucki says Roblox is “less a game than a 3D social platform where you and your friends can pretend to be in different places.” With the end goal of reality simulation still a long way off, Roblox is working to hold on to a customer base that’s constantly aging away from the game — just 19% of Roblox users are over 25.

Read more

Presented by Nasdaq

The summer is heating up – is your portfolio doing the same?

As of 6/30/2025 the Nasdaq-100^®returned 8.3% year to date, topping the S&P 500 by 2.1 percentage points. This continued a trend of outperformance.

Specifically, as of 6/30/25, the Nasdaq-100 delivered a 26.4% trailing 3-year annualized return compared to 19.7% for S&P 500. Similarly, the Nasdaq-100 delivered a 18.4% trailing 5-year annualized return compared to 16.6% for S&P 500.¹

The Nasdaq-100 Index^® (NDX^®) represents the 100 largest, most dynamic non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market^®.

From major players across the technology, healthcare, and consumer goods sectors, the index is home to some of the most innovative companies in the world, including the Magnificent Seven.

Get to know the Nasdaq-100 and how it can be additive to your portfolio.

ZOOM OUT

Stories we’re obsessed with

Tesla’s “biggest project of all time” (according to Musk) is falling behind schedule
Though Elon Musk has promised to make 5,000 Optimus robots by the end of the year, the project is reportedly facing engineering challenges. So far, only “hundreds” of the sleek black-and-white bots have been produced, many without hands or forearms as Tesla works on replicating the mechanics of five fingers. Ultimately, though, it seems like the market doesn’t really care. But the hardware might not even be Optimus’ biggest blocker.
The US birth rate is at a record low
Despite Elon Musk’s best efforts, the fertility rate in the US is well below the birth rate required for a population to replace itself. As plunging fertility rates worldwide foretell an impending global baby bust, governments are experimenting with incentives to encourage citizens to have more children, like President Trump’s proposed $5,000 “baby bonus” for new mothers. In fact, government intervention may have helped the country with the world’s lowest birth rate rise for the first time in nine years. See how America’s birth rate stacks up globally.

THE BEST THING WE READ TODAY

Palantir is now more valuable than Home Depot and Procter & Gamble

On Friday, the defense, data analytics, and AI business software firm hit a new all-time high, leapfrogging American corporate giants Home Depot and Procter & Gamble in terms of sheer size. (It’s already bigger than titans like Bank of America, Chevron, and Coca-Cola.) Over the past 12 months, Palantir has made its shareholders more than $300 billion richer. Is there still upside potential, or is the stock overvalued?

What the bulls say versus what the bears say

Presented by Pacaso

Major Investors Are Buying This Unlisted Stock

When the real estate star behind a $120M exit starts a new company, people notice. No wonder five major VC firms invested in Pacaso.

They sell fractions of premier properties, revamping a $1.3T vacation home market.² And it works, earning Pacaso $100M+ in gross profits since 2021.³ They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.⁴ Invest for $2.90/share.⁵

What else we're Snackin'

Intel announced plans to cut more than 20,000 jobs by the end of the year, but Wall Street still has long-term concerns about the company
Hoka, Deckers’ breakout running shoe brand, notched its best quarter ever and has almost caught up to Ugg, its parent company’s largest brand
Swiss bank Vontobel significantly boosted its stake in EV makers Nio and Rivian this quarter
More than 80 lawmakers sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking the regulator to crack down on companies selling knockoff weight-loss drugs made by compounding pharmacies and their telehealth partners, like Hims & Hers
The Hustle is a must-read for innovators. The daily newsletter delivers the latest stories in business and tech, what to learn from them, and how to capitalize. Join over 1.5 million innovators who start their day with The Hustle. Sign up today.

Snack Fact of the Day

An ounce of gold is up nearly $1,000 from one year ago.

This Week

Monday: Earnings expected from Waste Management, Nucor, and Whirlpool
Tuesday: Earnings expected from AstraZeneca, Stellantis, Boeing, Booking, Merck, PayPal, Procter & Gamble, Royal Caribbean, Spotify, UnitedHealth, UPS, Starbucks, SoFi, and Visa
Wednesday: Earnings expected from Meta, Microsoft, Altria, Kraft Heinz, Humana, Etsy, Qualcomm, Arm Holdings, Lam Research, Carvana, Allstate, Ford, MGM, and Robinhood*
Thursday: June personal consumption expenditures (the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge). Earnings expected from Apple, Amazon, CVS, Biogen, Strategy, Coinbase, Clorox, Roku, Lumen Technologies, Reddit, Roblox, Riot, Mastercard, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Cigna
Friday: July jobs report. Earnings expected from Exxon Mobil and Chevron

*Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.

Advertiser's disclosures

1 Annualized index returns are calculated using the following annualization formula: [ [ending value of investment/beginning value of investment]^(1/number of years)]-1. Partial year returns use the holding period return formula: [ending value of investment/beginning value of investment]-1.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Index performance is for illustrative purposes only and does not reflect any management fees, transaction costs or expenses. Indexes are unmanaged and one cannot invest directly in an index.

2 Pacaso estimates the U.S. market at $1.3 trillion and the European market as $500 billion. See website for further details.

3 The $100M gross profit is calculated from 2021-2024. For more details on the gross profit for 2021- 2023, please see management discussion of the financial condition section of the offering circular. For more details on the 2024 gross profit, please see the 1-K Financial Statements section.

4 Pacaso recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($PCSO). Reserving the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the Nasdaq is subject to approvals.

5 The minimum investment is $1,035.52 when including the 3.5% investor fee. This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.pacaso.com.

Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.

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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more