Robinhood (HOOD) got a double dose of Wall Street backing on Friday as Morgan Stanley and Barclays both raised their price targets on the stock. HOOD jumped more than 3% in premarket trading to $118.60, building on a run that has already seen the stock climb roughly 40% in the past month.
Morgan Stanley raised its target from $95 to $124 — a more than 30% increase — while maintaining its buy rating. The firm noted that brokers and exchanges are expected to post better-than-consensus Q2 earnings, driven by stronger volumes and volatility.
Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish also reiterated a buy rating and pushed his target from $82 to $122. He pointed to strong ongoing momentum in Robinhood’s platform and trading volumes as the company evolves beyond its retail broker roots.
These two upgrades follow similar moves from Goldman Sachs, Mizuho, and BTIG, all of which recently set 12-month price targets in the $121–$130 range.
HOOD closed Thursday at $115.11, up 1.39%, though trading volume stayed below its 30-day average of around 32 million.
The analyst optimism is tied in part to Robinhood’s expanding crypto and blockchain ambitions. On July 1, the company activated 24/7 tokenized stock trading across 120-plus countries and began routing perpetual futures contracts through a decentralised exchange called Lighter.
The new Robinhood Chain is built on Arbitrum, a Layer-2 network on Ethereum. It’s already attracted attention — Robinhood Chain surpassed Hyperliquid in 24-hour DEX volume, and its total value locked (TVL) hit $100 million within days of launch.
The launch puts Robinhood on a collision course with Solana, which currently handles more than 95% of global tokenized stock trading volume and hosts $568.1 million in tokenized equities. Solana’s speed and low fees have made it the go-to chain for tokenized assets.
Robinhood bypassed Solana entirely, choosing Arbitrum instead. Arbitrum is slower and more expensive than Solana, but Robinhood’s 28 million customers across 38 countries give it a distribution advantage that’s hard to replicate.
Solana isn’t standing still. Its on-chain real-world asset base grew from $1.4 billion to $3.3 billion between January and early July 2026, with major names like Bitwise, State Street, and Amundi issuing assets on the network.
Institutional players may prefer Solana to avoid potential conflicts of interest that come with using a competitor’s proprietary chain.
Robinhood’s meme coin ecosystem is also gaining traction. Cash Cat (CASHCAT), a Robinhood Chain-based meme coin, surged more than 1,000% in three days and was up roughly 80% in the past 24 hours, trading at $0.172.
Bitcoin climbed more than 3% to $64,556 on Friday, adding a tailwind for crypto-linked names like HOOD.
Robinhood collects roughly $157 per funded account annually and now has 28 million customers globally.
The post Robinhood (HOOD) Stock Gets Back-to-Back Upgrades as Blockchain Bet Pays Off appeared first on CoinCentral.
