Robinhood (HOOD) earnings preview: what to watch in Q3 2026

Robinhood Markets says it will report third-quarter 2026 results on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, after the US market close, with a video call at 5:00 p.m. ET. That date comes from the company's own announcement (Robinhood investor relations, reprinted on GlobeNewswire). Some third-party calendars still show early-November dates. Those are estimates, and the company's release takes precedence.

What last quarter showed

Our Q2 2026 analysis found a quarter that looked stronger at the headline than underneath:

• Revenue rose 32% to $1,308M and diluted EPS rose 48% to $0.62. Diluted EPS is profit per share, counting shares that stock awards and convertible debt could create.
• The growth came from new places. Event contracts (prediction markets) brought in $156M against $10M a year earlier, or 12% of total revenue. Margin interest rose 89% to $215M. Crypto trading revenue fell 38% to $100M.
• Operating margin slipped to 43.9% from 44.4%. Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business. Costs rose 33.5% to $734M, a little faster than revenue.
• About $129M of one-off investment gains did much of the work on the bottom line. Most of it ($106M) came from deconsolidating Robinhood Ventures Fund I, meaning Robinhood sold part of its stake and stopped counting the fund as its own. Without those gains, pre-tax income grew about 31%, in line with revenue rather than the reported 60%.

What management guided

The Q2 10-Q gave no formal revenue or earnings guidance. It did make two directional statements. First, future Fed rate cuts "will negatively impact our net interest revenues." Second, the SEC's tick-size, access-fee and odd-lot rule changes "could lead to a decrease in the PFOF earned". PFOF is payment for order flow, the fees market makers pay Robinhood to handle its customers' trades.

Three things to watch in Q3

1. Can event contracts hold 12% of revenue? Prediction-market revenue went from $10M to $156M in four quarters. Our Q2 report called it "exactly the kind of line that can halve as fast as it grew." The question for Q3 is whether that line is flat or higher against $156M, and whether it still makes up about 12% of revenue. That would show whether Q2 was a new base or a peak driven by a busy news cycle. Watch, too, for any new regulatory language about these contracts.

2. Margin lending versus rate-sensitive interest. In Q2, net interest revenue grew only 9% to $389M. Margin interest ($215M) grew fast, while roughly $132M of rate-linked income fell 22–33% as short-term rates came down. That $132M came from cash sweep ($41M), corporate cash ($31M) and segregated cash ($60M). Customer margin balances had more than doubled to $21.6B. Management has already said rate cuts hurt this line. So the test is whether margin interest keeps growing fast enough that total net interest revenue still rises from $389M.

3. Do costs grow slower than revenue now? On June 16, Robinhood cut about 10% of its full-time staff and took a $23M restructuring charge in Q2. The savings were not in Q2's numbers. General and administrative costs had jumped 51% to $199M, partly because executive stock awards were changed. If the cost cut is working, operating expenses should grow less than 33.5% year over year and operating margin should rise back above 43.9%. In Q2 it had fallen. Also check how much of Q3 profit comes from investment gains again. Robinhood still carries its remaining Robinhood Ventures Fund I stake at $437M, and changes in its value flow through "other income."

A smaller figure is crypto. It was $100M in Q2, down 38%, and customer crypto in custody fell to $26.3B from $41.1B. A further decline would mean event contracts and margin lending have to grow faster again just to keep total revenue rising.

We will publish our full Q3 2026 analysis after the results are filed. It will check each of these against the reported figures.