In 2020, wild fluctuations in the stock market caused by the pandemic turned millions of people into opportunistic investors. After stocks plunged in March, experienced traders and Nasdaq novices poured their dollars into buzzy tech companies like Tesla and Zoom, as well as businesses bludgeoned by Covid restrictions, including airlines, restaurants and cruises.
To reflect a year of volatility and impulsive investments, Robinhood, the popular trading app that has spurred controversy by marketing itself to young people, released a year-end data dump for its users. A news release promised that the Robinhood Recap would be a “special personalized experience that will take you through your investing journey this year — from views to trades, your most memorable investing moments, large or small, and other milestones along the way.”
Robinhood’s wrap-up — available to anyone who had an active account before Dec. 15 — showed the stocks users purchased, dividends and interest earned, which stock in their portfolio they clicked on the most and other data.
Some people praised the recap’s aesthetic and said they enjoyed finding out how early they were to adopt Robinhood. “We’ve been delighted to hear from many customers who enjoyed taking a look back at their year in investing, from saving screenshots of their recaps to sharing on social media,” a company spokesman wrote in an email.
Robinhood is one of several popular consumer apps to embrace shareable, data-driven year-in-review lists, like Spotify Wrapped, a recap of the upbeat or fittingly depressing songs people listened to in 2020, and Strava’s Year in Sport, which enumerates the miles its users ran and cycled. These packages use upbeat language and appealing graphic design to encourage their users to share them on social media.
But for most people, personal financial decisions aren’t as readily shareable as, say, their most-played artist of the year. They’re inherently private.
Kareem Rahma, 34, a comedian and entrepreneur, wrote in an email that he would “never share this information publicly as it is much more sensitive than my listening habits on Spotify.”
Still, plenty of people posted screen shots of their recap on social media. Many were struck by how often they checked the price of particular stocks.
“Tesla just in general has been growing like crazy, and obviously their stock has taken off, so it was kind of funny how apparently often I checked up with it,” said Eric Milligan, an information technologist.
Jordan Bishop, 29, was also surprised by that slide in his recap. “Before you know it, you’ve checked it 10 times in a day, and it’s giving you a little dopamine boost every time,” he said.
“Robinhood wrapped made me realize I was very obsessed over every dollar up or down in the market and it was just very unhealthy,” Rajat Kamboj, a 20-year-old college…
Read More: Robinhood’s 2020 Recaps Are a Meme for a Volatile Year