(Bloomberg) -- Stocktwits, a social media platform for retail investors, will allow users to buy and sell equities on its platform. It becomes the latest company to vie for the attention of US stock traders despite this year’s broad market selloff.
New York-based Stocktwits, which has more than 6 million registered users, will launch equity trading on its platform through its subsidiary ST Invest LLC, a SEC registered broker-dealer, according to a press release on Tuesday. Stocktwits, which has been offering a forum for discussing markets and trading ideas since 2008, rolled out cryptocurrency trading, its first asset, in February.
“This isn’t a two-month play, or a three-month play,” said Stocktwits Chief Executive Officer Rishi Khanna. “This is a foundational piece to what we believe will be a great investing and trading platform.”
The company’s equities trading feature faces a long list of competitors, including app-based brokers such as Robinhood Markets Inc. and Webull Financial, and brokerage heavyweights like Charles Schwab Corp. and Fidelity Investments. The rollout comes at a time when investors have been particularly hard on high-flying technology stocks.