Considering the interest and impact from “retail investors”—everyday people trading on the stock market—this may be the craziest week in the history of Wall Street. It started with users on the discussion platform Reddit and its WallStreetBets subreddit, which spearheaded a short squeeze of GameStop stock ($GME), forcing $GME to rise from under $20/share from earlier this month up to as high as over $400/share at the time of this publication. In the process, the short squeeze has caused hedge funds to lose billions of dollars very quickly.
GameStop seems to be the golden goose for these retail investors, but AMC stock ($AMC) has been the main secondary target, going from under $5/share on Tuesday to over $20/share on Wednesday. However, brokerage firms—beginning with Robinhood—restricted trading on a few controversial stocks including $GME and $AMC, causing the stock prices to drop in what most agree is clear market manipulation to help billionaire hedge funds trying to cover their shorts.
From Mark Cuban to Donald Trump Jr. to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Ted Cruz to Dave Portnoy, mostly everyone is in agreement the actions by Robinhood and others were unfair—when you have AOC and Ted Cruz agreeing strongly on something, you know it had to be messed up. Here’s some of the top reaction from an historic stretch on the stock market:
So are @robinhoodapp and @IBKR ending trading in #wallstreetbets stocks because they are losing their ass on these trades ? Or maybe they dont have the cash to enable the trades at this scale ? Anyone have any insight on their economics ?
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 28, 2021
Wait are people not being allowed to buy $amc and $nok?
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
And it turns out @RobinhoodApp is the biggest frauds of them all. “Democratizing finance for all” except when we manipulate the market cause too many ordinary people are getting rich pic.twitter.com/Xcvs4CdEmr
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
Somebody is going to have to explain to me in what world @RobinhoodApp and others literally trying to force a crash by closing the open market is fair? They should all be in jail.
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
It took less than a day for big tech, big government and the corporate media to spring into action and begin colluding to protect their hedge fund buddies on Wall Street. This is what a rigged system looks like, folks! #RobinHood #RedditArmy #GME #GMEtothemoon https://t.co/UhrwGHCjng
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 28, 2021
This is unacceptable.
We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.
As a member of the Financial Services Cmte, I’d support a hearing if necessary. https://t.co/4Qyrolgzyt
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 28, 2021
Fully agree. 👇 https://t.co/rW38zfLYGh
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 28, 2021
Last night, Portnoy summed the situation up nicely on FOX News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
I Won’t Rest Till The People Responsible For Today Are Behind Bars pic.twitter.com/tlbHD4TPQ0
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 29, 2021
Basically, trading of stocks such as GameStop and AMC was stopped for the retail investor—they could only sell, which obviously means the price will go down—costing everyday people money.
https://twitter.com/cptMajid27/status/1355170316335665163?s=20
Everyone that invests in the stock market should know the risks, and it’s probably not wise to invest money you cannot afford to lose. But this situation is pretty extraordinary—changing the rules in middle of the game to favor billionaires is what has people rightfully angry. It’s difficult to tell people they should be responsible for their actions and investments (and thus, their losses) when one side is tipping the scales so that it really isn’t a free market.
There have already been multiple class action lawsuits filed against Robinhood.
thanks for covering wolf sports! it ain’t right!
The elitists halted all the momentum GME and AMC had. It’s TOTAL AND COMPLETE BS. Gamestop might be at 800-1000 and AMC 250-500 if it wasn’t for them changing the rules. Meanwhile the elite won’t give stimulus checks and there are no good jobs available they tell us to “build solar panels”
Tomorrow we go to war
lol. It was a simple pump and dump, and brokers have to post up funds due to settlement rules — hence, the trade halting.
Cuban was egging all these people on to lost their shirts….disgraceful all around.