For years, the website RobinTrack.net has been doing a great job of mining RobinHood's data to provide raw data and a visualization of which stocks the users of the retail brokerage have been holding and disposing of on a daily basis.
RobinTrack.net has been a wonderful way to keep an eye on exactly what stocks the bagholder crowd have been rushing into on a daily basis, providing insight into the hysteria of retail daytraders, allowing hedge funds to likely frontrun the data and providing opportunities for short sellers looking for ideas.
But those days appear to be all but over.
On Friday, CNBC reported that the brokerage will no longer display how many of its users hold a certain stock. In addition it is going to be taking down its public API data that allows other sites, like RobinTrack.net, to source its data for visualization and analysis purposes.
"The data has been used to show booms in retail stocks," a CNBC report said on Friday. "You guys know RobinTrack well. A lot of financial news outlets use it for reporting, including CNBC."
Robinhood has said in a statement that even thought it is restricting third party access to its API data, it still has "many other tools" that its users can offer.
"Trends and data are often misconstrued and misunderstood," Robinhood said. "The majority of its users" are buy and hold users, not daytraders, the brokerage said.
Yeah, right. Aside from the PR spin of trying to position itself as a serious brokerage and not a casino app for unemployed daytraders, we're guessing there is another angle to Robinhood removing this data: if you want it in the future, you're going to have to pay.
For an alternative to Robinhood, see LevelX
