👉 A Very Rare "Surge in Stock Blowups"

Robinhood delivered a year of record achievements but faced a "reality check" in the fourth quarter as its reliance on cryptocurrency trading caused it to miss revenue expectations. While the company has successfully built a subscription powerhouse with its Gold program, the volatility of crypto markets remains a significant headwind to consistency delivering strong earnings growth.

The real story was the full-year performance, where revenue hit a record $4.5 billion (+52%) and net income reached $1.9 billion, signaling that the core business has reached sustainable profitability.

Equities and Options revenue soared 54% and 41% respectively, driven by active retail traders. However, Cryptocurrency revenue plummeted 38% to $221 million as the "crypto winter" returned in Q4. A major positive offset was the explosion in "Other Transaction Revenue" (+300%), fueled by the viral success of prediction markets. The Gold subscription service also continues to shine, with subscribers growing 58% to 4.2 million, creating a sticky, recurring revenue stream that helps dampen trading volatility. Total Platform Assets grew an impressive 68% to $324 billion, driven by $68 billion in net deposits for the year—a clear sign that customers trust Robinhood with their life savings, not just their "play money."

Management repurchased $100M in shares during the quarter. Management also shared more about their “SuperApp” vision — highlighting that Gold subscribers are not just more numerous, but more valuable, holding 5x the assets of standard users. The company also emphasized its roadmap for 2026, which includes launching futures trading and expanding its credit card offering to further entrench users in the ecosystem.

They also expressed high confidence in prediction markets as a long-term asset class, not a fad. Finally, they addressed the 2026 expense guidance, framing the projected increase in spending as necessary to fund product velocity and international growth.

Long Robinhood.

The company beat Wall Street expectations on revenue, driven by a spectacular acceleration in its Zero Trust product lines and the continued dominance of its network performance tools. However, the report was met with some caution as investors digested the widening GAAP losses associated with their aggressive infrastructure investments.

The "Enterprise" segment was the undisputed star, with customers paying over $100k growing 23%. This segment now accounts for nearly three-quarters of total revenue, proving Cloudflare has successfully moved upmarket. The company also highlighted its success in the AI space, with its "Workers AI" platform becoming a default choice for developers needing low-latency inference.

Free Cash Flow nearly doubled year-over-year to almost $100 million, giving the company a "war chest" to invest in GPU infrastructure without diluting shareholders. While Gross Margins compressed slightly due to these hardware investments, management defended this as a strategic move to capture the nascent AI inference market.

Their CEO highlighted that inference tasks—running the AI models—will inevitably move to the edge of the network to reduce latency and cost, a shift that perfectly aligns with Cloudflare’s architecture. He also addressed the competitive landscape, noting that legacy hardware vendors are struggling to compete with Cloudflare's software-defined network.

Cloudflare’s guidance for 2026 paints a picture of sustained hyper-growth. With revenue projected to hit $3 billion and Free Cash Flow margins expanding, the company is positioning itself as one of the few software firms that can balance 30%+ growth with meaningful cash generation.

Long Cloudflare.

The company posted its strongest revenue growth in years at 31%, accelerated by a perfect storm of enterprise adoption, international expansion, and deep penetration of its financial services. However, the report was met with volatility as management signaled a return to "investment mode," guiding for lower margins in early 2026 to fund a massive push into AI and "Agentic Commerce."

the "Merchant Solutions" segment (which includes payments and shipping) grew 35%, outpacing the subscription business. This is the "flywheel" in action: as merchants sell more, Shopify makes more. The B2B segment was a standout performer with 84% growth, validating the company's strategy to move upmarket and serve complex wholesale needs. Additionally, the "Offline" business is now a nearly $3 billion annual run-rate powerhouse, proving Shopify is winning the omnichannel war.

Free Cash Flow exceeded $2 billion for the full year, a milestone that underscores the efficiency gains achieved since the logistics business divestiture. The company also announced a $2 billion buyback program — signaling that management believes the stock is undervalued despite its premium multiple. Management guided to +30% growth in 2026 with lower margins, quoted saying “We are building for 2030, not for the next quarter’s EPS.”

Long Shopify, holy smokes.

“In our view, this broadening of the rally — away from crowded momentum names and toward more under-loved areas such as value and smaller-cap stocks — is a healthy development after several years of mega-cap, growth-led gains.”