Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Tenev: Robinhood bans short selling and naked call options trades

Vlad Tenev · Robinhood: Vlad Tenev · Apr 12, 2021 · at 58:05

Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev addresses concerns about retail investors losing money and explains the app's built-in trading restrictions.

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“You can't short sell on Robinhood. Short selling is one of the main ways that someone could lose more money than they put in. We don't offer undefined risk options trades either. So you can't sell naked calls.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Robinhood does not support short selling and does not permit undefined-risk options trading, such as selling naked calls.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

As of April 2021, Robinhood did not offer short selling of equities, nor did it permit undefined-risk options trading such as selling naked calls. Platform documentation, third-party broker reviews, and then-CEO Vlad Tenev's February 2021 Congressional testimony confirm that equity short selling was not supported (and was not rolled out until late 2024/2025). Furthermore, Robinhood's Level 2 and Level 3 options trading rules strictly restricted trading to defined-risk strategies (e.g., covered calls, cash-secured puts, and defined-risk multi-leg spreads), explicitly barring naked calls and uncovered options.

Broker reviews and product documentation throughout 2020-2021 confirm Robinhood did not support equity short selling, which was only introduced in late 2024/2025.
Robinhood options trading documentation and rules explicitly prohibited uncovered (naked) options, restricting users to covered calls, cash-secured puts, and risk-defined spreads.
In February 18, 2021 Congressional testimony, CEO Vlad Tenev stated under oath that Robinhood did not allow undefined risk options trades or the selling of naked calls, a position reiterated in a May 2022 FINRA regulatory filing.

Checked against

[1] quora.com [2] quora.com [3] quora.com [4] copcap.com [5] facebook.com [6] robinhood.com [7] govinfo.gov [8] robinhood.com

"Robinhood" "short selling" options "naked calls" 2021 Investopedia Robinhood "short selling" 2021 "Robinhood does not support short selling" "Robinhood" "S-1" "short selling" OR "naked options" OR "uncovered options" 2021 Robinhood options trading levels naked calls defined risk Robinhood S-1 filing "short selling" "naked" options

assessed as of 2026-09-03

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

naked calls Robinhood short selling

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