It's a return to grace for Robinhood. After its meteoric growth between 2017 and 2021 - a period which saw its customer base increase sixfold to reach twenty-three million active accounts - the brokerage had encountered a brutal air pocket, and faced its first customer exodus.

This year, the company is recovering more than well, with three highly profitable quarters in a row, and an increase in the number of customer accounts to twenty-five million.

Cynics will be quick to point out that the company's success is directly correlated with the public's renewed interest in risky speculation. The very strong growth over the last quarter - with sales up 36% year-on-year - was in fact driven by spectacular volume increases in options and crypto-currencies.

Despite - or because of - the presidential election, the American public is rekindling the betting fever that periodically grips it so incandescently: options volumes handled by Robinhood are up 47% year-on-year, and cryptocurrency volumes are up 112%.

These developments are already reflected in the broker's market valuation, which has tripled in the space of twelve months as brokerage commissions have soared. At forty-six times its expected earnings this year, the signal is clear: rightly or wrongly, the market is betting that Robinhood will be able to sustain its growth momentum of recent months.

Nothing is less certain, however, as it's clear that the overheated options and crypto casino model will soon reach its limits. It's also certain that Robinhood's customer base is far less stable - and less affluent - than those of its competitors Interactive Brokers, Fidelity, Charles Schwab or E-Trade.

This is undoubtedly why founder Vlad Tenev promises to diversify his offering in all directions, notably towards credit cards and savings products. But this will be sooner said than done, as he will then find himself in head-on competition with much better established - and perhaps more respectable - establishments than his own.

There is also the risk that the regulator will take a harder line. After Binance and Coinbase, the SEC has warned that it has Robinhood in its sights. While Robinhood may be comforted by the unexpected windfall it has pocketed over the past few months, it is still waiting to find out what sauce it will be eaten with.

MarketScreener analysts believe that the current speculative fever - once again out of control - is clouding the issue, and that Robinhood's current profitability levels are unsustainable. Members of the broker's management team seem to think so too, as they are rushing to dump the shares they generously receive as stock options onto the market.