By Manya Saini

(Reuters) -Robinhood shares surged to their highest in nearly two years on Wednesday, after the brokerage said it was aiming to expand margins while being focused on driving ‘profitable growth’ this year having reported a surprise quarterly profit.

Retail-investor driven Robinhood’s stock was last up 14% in morning trading. It crushed Wall Street expectations on Tuesday after-market, on the back of higher interest income and a rebound in cryptocurrencies and equities trading.

Executives flexed Robinhood gaining market share from traditional financial heavyweights.

“We won head-to-head net asset transfers from all the other major brokerages in Q4, and that includes Fidelity. So, that means that more assets actually flowed from Fidelity to Robinhood in Q4 than the other way around,” said CEO Vlad Tenev.

The company’s fourth-quarter assets under custody (AUC) increased 65% year-over-year to $102.6 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Jason Warnick, in a post-earnings call with analysts, said Robinhood expects strong revenue growth in 2024 and is focused on driving net deposits higher.

“Assets under custody breached $100 billion for the first time since Q2 2021, back near Robinhood’s meme trading peak. We are encouraged by solid inflow of assets to the platform,” J.P. Morgan analysts wrote in a note.

Brokerage Piper Sandler said Robinhood will gain from “very strong net deposit trends” in the first quarter.

Robinhood also expects to keep expenses in check by keeping headcount roughly “flat-to-slightly up” this year.

It has been contending with a decline in active users on its platform in recent quarters, but has managed to grow revenue per customer.

Robinhood was at the center of the 2021 retail trading frenzy, driven by mom-and-pop investors who used the company’s commission-free platform to pump money into so-called “meme stocks” during pandemic-era lockdowns.

Robinhood reported a profit of 3 cents per share in the quarter, compared with expectations of a loss of 1 cent, according to LSEG data.

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)