Hargreaves Lansdown is anticipating a sharp uptick in profits for the year ending 30 June after a surge in online trading particularly by amateur investors in US stocks during the Gamestop mania.
The D2C platform provider published an RNS on Wednesday announcing since the end of January it had seen elevated volumes of share dealing, with an increased proportion directed towards international equities, driven by interest in US stocks.
See also: Hargreaves profits boosted by younger savers with spare cash during lockdown
At the end of January, hordes of amateur traders on Reddit waged war on short sellers who had overly bet against struggling video game retailer Gamestop, as well as other beaten up and heavily shorted companies like AMC, Blackberry and Nokia.
Hargreaves Lansdown said: “As a result, the group now expects profit before tax for the financial year ending 30 June 2021 (on a post-Financial Services Compensation Scheme levy basis) to be modestly above the top end of analyst expectations.”
Further information is expected when Hargreaves produces its scheduled trading update on 13 May for the four months ending 30 April.
See also: Nick Train blames hedge fund ‘shenanigans’ for HL and Pearson share price volatility
