Restrictions on Robinhood traders eased throughout the day on Tuesday, now allowing them to buy up to 100 shares of GameStop. This compares to Thursday’s 'limited buys' of 20 stocks, and last week’s full ban of trading in highflying stocks that have surged in price in recent weeks.
Additionally, Robinhood customers can buy up to 1250 shares and options contracts of AMC Entertainment. Meanwhile, the buy limits for the remaining companies, such as Nokia and Express, have been increased to 2000 shares.
Moreover, the no-fee app shortened its list of restricted stocks from 50 earlier in the day to 5.
“Please note that these are aggregate limits for each security and not per-order limits, and include shares and options contracts that you already hold,” Robinhood added.
The feature of fractional shares is still restricted to position closing only for all of the securities listed in the amended table. This means you can sell and close your fractional positions, but you cannot open new fractional positions.
Also, Robinhood confirmed that it will not sell any client’s shares of these stocks that are already over the share limit from a previous position.
Earlier on January 27, the platform app moved to curb the wild trading activity by raising Margin Requirements and restricting transactions to position closing only, effectively preventing its users from making new purchases in several skyrocketing stocks.
The no-commission app called its initial decision "tough" amid the meme stock craze, but said it was inevitable after clearing houses hiked deposit requirements for equities ten-fold. Furthermore, the broker temporarily disabled some cryptocurrency purchases, having suspended its so-called ‘Instant Buying’ feature.
Users of the free-commission app can only buy Cryptocurrencies with cash they already deposited in their accounts. If they want to buy more, it takes up to five business days to receive and clear their regular deposits.
Robinhood was not alone, though. Most online brokers have put a halt on handling any new orders for GameStop and other stocks, meaning investors could not close out their positions to make their profit.
Shares of companies such as GameStop and prices of Dogecoin cryptocurrency escalated wildly last week after an army of individual traders congregated on Reddit’s boards to collectively buy more of these assets.
