The Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, Jan. 30, 2023.
Marlena Sloss | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google parent Alphabet has pared back large positions in multiple publicly traded firms, including the trading platform Robinhood, the gene testing company 23andMe and language learning startup Duolingo.
The company dumped nearly 90% of its stake in Robinhood, according to SEC filings. The company sold off more than 4.3 million shares of the fintech stock during the period ending June 30. Robinhood posted its first profit as a publicly traded company on Aug. 2.
Robinhood has struggled since its 2021 initial public offering. The company saw a surge of users during the Covid-19 pandemic, drawn in by the flourishing tech trade. But the company was also at the center of a scandal over its role in the “meme stock” mania and retail trading outrage at payment for order flow.
Still, the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings, turning 3 cents per share for the second quarter compared with a Refinitiv consensus estimate of a 1 cent per share loss. Monthly active users, a key benchmark for Wall Street, remain depressed quarter over quarter and year over year.
Alphabet still held about 612,000 shares of Robinhood as of June 30.
Alphabet also trimmed significant positions in Duolingo and 23andMe. It sold about 523,000 shares of Duolingo. The company had previously held more than 6.7 million shares of 23andMe, the gene testing startup co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the former wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Alphabet sold them by the end of the period ending June 30.
