NEW YORK, Jan 30 — Online broker Robinhood, one of the hottest venues in this week’s retail-trading frenzy, said it put temporary buying restrictions on a small number of securities as clearing house-mandated deposit requirements for equities increased ten-fold.

"...the required amount we had to deposit with the clearing house was so large — with individual volatile securities accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in deposit requirements — that we had to take steps to limit buying in those volatile securities to ensure we could comfortably meet our requirements,” it said in a blog post late yesterday.

Robinhood’s fee-free and simple-to-use app has made it popular with a new generation of small-time traders and its restrictions on Thursday drew a heavy backlash from high-profile politicians and celebrities.

Retail investors using Robinhood and other apps drove the so-called "Reddit rally” that pushed up shares of GameStop Corp and other companies championed on social media platforms including Reddit, resulting in heavy losses for big hedge funds that had shorted the shares. — Reuters