Americans’ interest in “meme stocks” may be dwindling.
Earlier this year, traders communicating via online social networks collectively agreed to purchase stock in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-gamestop-controversy-what-you-need-to-know">GameStop</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/reddits-wallstreetbets-wins-again-as-amc-stock-soars">AMC Entertainment</a>, and cryptocurrencies such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/to-the-moon-dogecoin-plummets-robinhood-experiences-issues-after-elon-musk-admits-its-a-hustle-on-snl">Dogecoin</a>. However, recent search engine data reveals a declining public interest among amateur stock trading.
<a href="https://www.axios.com/meme-stocks-invest-decline-09a041d2-12c7-4077-aa13-24cd3deeea6e.html">Axios</a> reports:
<blockquote>One factor that turns a stock into a meme stock is that it attracts the attention of new traders who are committed to trading with hoards of buyers.
These new traders tend to be novice traders, and they seek information like novices at anything else: they do Google searches for basic terms. However, Google Trends data shows searches for basic terms like &#8220;investing&#8221; and &#8220;buy stocks&#8221; have fallen to levels not seen in over a year.</blockquote>
Searches for the two terms skyrocketed in January and February; however, they have since fallen considerably.
&#8220;To our eyes, the data here says that the surge in US retail investor interest in investing is entirely over,&#8221; wrote DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas, as quoted by Axios. &#8220;Every craze needs new adherents (i.e., not just the same crowd) to keep it relevant, and the Google chart shows those are in increasingly short supply.&#8221;
The meme stock phenomenon worried federal regulators, who claimed that the collective decision to purchase assets constituted market manipulation.
“U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators are combing social media and message board posts for signs that fraud played a role in dizzying stock swings for GameStop Corp., AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., and other companies,” Bloomberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/reddit-investors-now-taking-losses-as-gamestop-stock-price-tumbles-sec-investigating-potential-manipulation">reported</a> in February. “The scrutiny is being done in tandem with a review of trading data to assess whether such posts were part of a manipulative effort to drive up share prices, said the people, who requested anonymity because the review isn’t public. The regulator is specifically on the hunt for misinformation meant to improperly tilt the market.”
Despite regulators’ concerns, several business moguls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-4-business-moguls-cheering-for-the-little-guys-in-the-gamestop-fiasco">enthused</a> by the small-time investors’ efforts.
“I got to say I LOVE LOVE what is going on with #wallstreetbets,” tweeted Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. “All of those years of High Frequency Traders front running retail traders, now speed and density of information and retail trading is giving the little guy an edge.”
“Old days where a hedge fund manager could quietly short a stock, then publish negative research and take a bullhorn to it in the media are over,” tweeted Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, referring to the investors who lost billions after betting heavily against GameStop. “They now run the risk that the power of the crowd will turn on them and squeeze their heads like a teenage pimple. I’m good with it!”
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who has publicly endorsed Dogecoin — also told traders to give “no respect” to “shorty apologists.”

GameStop

GameStop Stopped? ‘Meme Stock’ Trading Shows Signs Of Decline

Robinhood will pay nearly $70 million to settle a federal investigation into its practices.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) alleged that the platform — which became popular after making commission-free securities trading accessible to first-time investors — has caused customers “widespread and significant” harm.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/robinhood-agrees-to-pay-70-million-to-settle-regulatory-investigation-11625063765">The Wall Street Journal</a> reports that Robinhood agreed to a $57 million fine and $12.6 million in compensation for investors, who were affected by widespread outages that halted trading for many securities.
According to FINRA’s <a href="https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/robinhood-financial-awc-063021.pdf">complaint</a>:
<blockquote>In determining the appropriate sanctions in this matter, FINRA considered, among other factors, that Robinhood, over a period of at least five years, failed to establish and maintain a supervisory system that was reasonably designed to achieve compliance with FINRA rules and applicable securities laws and regulations, and as a result, experienced systemic supervisory failures in several critical parts of its business… FINRA considered the widespread and significant harm suffered by customers, including millions of customers who received false or misleading information from the firm, thousands of customers who were approved to trade options even when it was not appropriate for them to do so, and millions of customers affected by the systems outages in March 2020. </blockquote>
<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5p8z/feds-seized-robinhood-ceos-phone-in-gamestop-trading-halt-investigation">Vice</a> reported that federal attorneys seized CEO Vladimir Tenev’s phone during the investigation.
Earlier this year, a group of investors collectively decided to purchase shares of GameStop, AMC Entertainment, and other firms that were heavily “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszj1flDxl0">shorted</a>” — in other words, “bet against” — by hedge funds and other institutional investors. When small-time buyers purchased shares en masse, the hedge funds experienced a “short squeeze,” thereby inducing multibillion-dollar losses.
Some entrepreneurs — including Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-4-business-moguls-cheering-for-the-little-guys-in-the-gamestop-fiasco">blasted</a> Robinhood and financial services company Citadel for restricting trades of GameStop.
“‘We are going to crash those stocks so all our hedge fund billionaire friends can get out and not get killed’ is one of the most remarkable, illegal, shocking robberies in history,” said Portnoy, who called for the imprisonment of Robinhood and Citadel executives for stopping “the everyday Jimmy and Joe” from investing “fair and square.”
Kevin O’Leary also slammed Wall Street investors for being sore losers.
“Old days where a hedge fund manager could quietly short a stock, then publish negative research and take a bullhorn to it in the media are over,” tweeted the Canadian entrepreneur. “They now run the risk that the power of the crowd will turn on them and squeeze their heads like a teenage pimple. I’m good with it!”

GameStop And Robinhood Photo Illustrations

Robinhood Will Fork Over $70 Million To Slighted Investors And Feds

Shares for video game retailer GameStop spiked nearly 9% as markets opened on Tuesday morning.
The firm <a href="https://news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-completes-market-equity-offering-program-0">announced</a> that it successfully sold 5,000,000 shares of stock to generate $1.13 billion, which executives will use for “general corporate purposes as well as for investing in growth initiatives and maintaining a strong balance sheet.”
The company’s stock is now trading at over $220 per share. In August of 2020, shares sold for less than $5 each.
CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/gamestop-jumps-9percent-after-the-original-meme-stock-cashes-in-again-with-1-billion-share-sale.html">reports</a>:
<blockquote>This is the second stock sale that GameStop has conducted since the company became a star on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum&#8230; GameStop sold 3.5 million additional shares in April and raised $551 million.
Investors have been encouraged by the moves and looked past the dilution of their stakes as GameStop took advantage of its monstrous rally this year to speed up its e-commerce transformation. The stock has advanced over 1,000% in 2021.</blockquote>
Yesterday, the Financial Times <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/397bdbe9-f257-4ca6-b600-1756804517b6">reported</a> that White Square Capital — a London-based hedge fund that bet against GameStop — shuttered its main fund after suffering double-digit losses since January.
The retailer recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gamestop-poaches-its-new-ceo-and-cfo-from-amazon-looking-to-compete-in-e-commerce-space">hired</a> former Amazon executives Matt Furlong and Mike Recupero to serve as CEO and CFO, respectively. The company announced in a press release that it would seek to “actively pursue senior talent with gaming, retail, and technology experience.”
GameStop made a stir on Wall Street in January after users on a Reddit group called WallStreetBets decided to collectively purchase shares. The intention was to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-gamestop-controversy-what-you-need-to-know">create</a> a “short squeeze” — a scenario in which institutional investors betting against the stock would be forced to take heavy losses as prices soared.
Several business moguls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-4-business-moguls-cheering-for-the-little-guys-in-the-gamestop-fiasco">thrilled</a> that small investors were humbling Wall Street.
“Old days where a hedge fund manager could quietly short a stock, then publish negative research and take a bullhorn to it in the media are over,” tweeted Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary. “They now run the risk that the power of the crowd will turn on them and squeeze their heads like a teenage pimple. I’m good with it!”
“Here come the shorty apologists,” “give them no respect,” “Get Shorty,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said about those defending the hedge funds that shorted GameStop.
“We are going to crash those stocks so all our hedge fund billionaire friends can get out and not get killed is one of the most remarkable, illegal, shocking robberies in history,” said Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy after popular trading platform Robinhood disallowed purchases of GameStop shares.
Some lawmakers asked federal agencies to more closely regulate “market manipulation” that arose from meme stocks.
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warren-calls-on-sec-to-investigate-potential-market-manipulation-cautions-against-internet-trading-schemes-a-flash-mob-with-money">letter</a> to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that she was “deeply concerned that these casino-like swings in the value of GameStop and other company shares,” which represented “yet another example of the gamesmanship that interferes with the ‘fair, orderly, and efficient’ function of the market, raising obvious questions about public confidence in the market and those trading in it.”
“I am writing to seek information on how the SEC intends to address these concerns and prevent these and future incidents of potential market manipulation,” said Warren. “Hedge funds, such as Melvin Capital Management, have bet that GameStop’s shares would fall in the hopes of reaping substantial profits.”

GameStop Shares Jump 9%, Investment Firm Closes Main Fund After Heavy Losses

According to its earnings release earlier this week, GameStop has poached its new chief executive (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO) from Amazon, looking to continue to grow its e-commerce business model as it moves away from store-based locations.
Matt Furlong replaces former GameStop CEO George Sherman, while Mike Recupero comes in as CFO.
“GameStop today announced the appointments of Matt Furlong as Chief Executive Officer and Mike Recupero as Chief Financial Officer. Messrs. Furlong and Recupero join from Amazon, where they held senior roles and oversaw various growth initiatives during their respective tenures. The Company is continuing to actively pursue senior talent with gaming, retail and technology experience,” GameStop announced via a <a href="https://news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-releases-first-quarter-2021-financial-results">press release</a>.
“In recent months, GameStop — which has been a darling of internet retail stock traders this year — has undergone a major executive shakeup at the direction of Ryan Cohen, the billionaire Chewy.com founder who invested heavily in GameStop last year and joined its board in January,” explained <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/09/tech/gamestop-new-ceo-cfo/index.html">CNN</a>. “On Wednesday, Cohen was confirmed as chairman of GameStop&#8217;s board during the company&#8217;s annual shareholder meeting.”
According to reports, many other recent hires come from either Amazon or Cohen’s Chewy.com, including “its first-ever chief technology officer, a new chief operating officer, a new senior vice president of e-commerce.”
In the first quarter of 2021, GameStop reported a net sales growth of 25% to $1.3 billion, the company reported.
“Net sales increased 25.1% to $1.277 billion, compared to $1.021 billion in the fiscal 2020 first quarter, overcoming a nearly 12% reduction in the Company’s global store base due to strategic de-densification efforts, and continued store closures across Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” GameStop wrote. “Gross margin was 25.9%, a decline of 180 basis points compared to the fiscal 2020 first quarter.”
Following a Reddit “frenzy” which fueled massive turbulence in GameStop stock, Loop Capital analyst Anthony Chukumba reportedly dropped his coverage of GameStop and told CNBC that the gaming retailer’s problems will continue regardless of its hiring decisions.
“It’s great that these guys worked at Amazon. Amazon is a very successful retailer that I do cover, that I’m very familiar with, but at the end of the day, GameStop’s problems have very little, if anything, to do with e-commerce,” Chukumba said on CNBC’s “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/closing-bell/">Closing Bell</a>.” 
“Their problem is not that they’re not a good omnichannel retailer. The problem is that gamers are increasingly downloading video games,” he added. “Look, they can hire Jeff Bezos when he comes back from space. &#8230; It’s not going to make a difference. The symptoms are not aligned with the medicine that the doctor is giving them. You can hire anyone you want from Amazon — not going to make a difference.”
As <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/09/gamestop-gme-earnings-q1-2021.html">CNBC</a> noted, “GameStop’s shares are up 1,506% so far this year. Its shares have swung from a 52-week low of $3.77 to a 52-week high of $483. As of Wednesday’s close, shares were $302.56. Its market value is $21.41 billion.”

GameStop Poaches Its New CEO And CFO From Amazon, Looking To Compete In E-Commerce Space

Amazon

Big Tech

WallStreetBets&#8217; Keith Gill testified Thursday during the House Financial Services Committee hearing examining the saga over GameStop shares.
Gill, who goes by &#8220;Roaring Kitty&#8221; on YouTube, opened the hearing by telling lawmakers that he&#8217;s not wealthy, not a hedge fund, and, indeed, not a cat. He defended his activity on the social media platform Reddit in relation to GameStop stocks while expressing strong support for the video game company.
&#8220;When I wrote and spoke about GameStop in social media with other individual investors, our conversations were no different than people in a bar, or on a golf course, or at home talking or arguing about a stock,&#8221; Gill argued before lawmakers.
&#8220;Hedge funds and other Wall Street firms have teams of analysts working together to compile research and analyze shares of companies. Individual investors do not have those resources,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;Social media platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter are leveling the playing field.&#8221;
&#8220;The idea that I used social media to promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors and influence the market is preposterous,&#8221; Gill asserted. &#8220;My post did not cause the movement of billions of dollars into GameStop shares.&#8221;
Behind Mr. Gill, who was dressed formally in a shirt and tie, was a displayed poster of a cat with the caption, &#8220;Hang in there&#8221; &#8212; seemingly a play on his &#8220;Roaring Kitty&#8221; YouTube identity. His signature red sweatband was hanging on the poster, too.
In prepared testimony, Gill echoed the same. &#8220;As an individual investor, I use publicly available information to study the market and the value of specific companies,&#8221; his written remarks say. &#8220;I consider a complex array of factors and track hundreds of stocks – all in search of market inefficiencies. Like many people, sometimes I post on social media my thoughts and analysis about individual stocks and whether they are correctly valued.&#8221;
&#8220;I did that with GameStop. I believed the company was dramatically undervalued by the market. The prevailing analysis about GameStop’s impending doom was simply wrong.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/gamestop-stock-hearing-keith-gill-reddit-robinhood">noted</a> by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday morning, GameStop &#8220;retailer shares soared last month to above $480, from $18.84 at the start of 2021. The surge was fueled in part by an army of bullish individual traders exhorting one another on platforms such as Reddit to buy shares and options and squeeze the hedge funds shorting the stock.&#8221;
Read Gill&#8217;s full prepared <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/BA/BA00/20210218/111207/HHRG-117-BA00-Wstate-GillK-20210218.pdf">testimony</a>, below:
<blockquote>Thank you Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, members of the Committee. 
Before I go further, I want to be clear about what I am not. I am not a hedge fund. I do not have clients, and I do not provide personalized investment advice for fees or commissions. I am an individual investor. My investment in GameStop and my posts on social media were entirely my own. 
I did not solicit anyone to buy or sell the stock for my own profit. I did not belong to any groups trying to create movements in the stock price. I never had a financial relationship with any hedge fund. I had no information about GameStop except what was public. I did not know any people inside the company, and I never spoke to any insider. 
As an individual investor, I use publicly available information to study the market and the value of specific companies. I consider a complex array of factors and track hundreds of stocks – all in search of market inefficiencies. Like many people, sometimes I post on social media my thoughts and analysis about individual stocks and whether they are correctly valued. 
I did that with GameStop. I believed the company was dramatically undervalued by the market. The prevailing analysis about GameStop’s impending doom was simply wrong. 
A little about my background: I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. My father was a truck driver, and my mom a registered nurse. I was one of three kids, and the first in my family to earn a four-year college degree when I graduated from Stonehill College in 2009, amid the Great Recession and without a long-term job. My first post-college job was in operations at W.B. Mason, an office supplies company headquartered in my home town of Brockton. 
Between 2010 and 2014, I worked for a family friend at a start-up company in New Hampshire, trying to build a software program that would help investors analyze stocks and offer related research. We also tried to start an investment firm, which dissolved not long after it was created. My salary never exceeded $40,000, but I did learn something about investing. I learned how to do the tedious work of digging through a company’s financials and focusing on its real long-term value, not prevailing market sentiment or headlines. 
I married my wife Caroline in 2016, and I found a job working operations and compliance at LexShares. I left that job in March 2017, and for the next two years I was effectively without a job. During that time, I began actively analyzing a wide array of stocks to try to keep and increase our limited savings. It was both a way to make money and an interest that I pursued passionately while I lacked a job. 
In April 2019, I accepted a marketing and financial education job at MassMutual. Caroline and I were both happy about our prospects. I had never made a salary over $100,000 a year before, and I was thrilled just to be working and to have benefits again. My title was Director, Financial Wellness Education. My job was to help develop financial education classes that advisors could present to prospective clients. I never sold securities, and I was not a financial advisor. 
I continued analyzing stocks on my own time and investing my family’s funds. In early June of 2019, the price of GameStop’s stock declined on worse than expected earnings, and it began trading at a deep discount, below what I thought was its fair value. I was aware from public reports that a well-known investor, Michael Burry, was interested in GameStop. Because I thought the stock was undervalued, I purchased call options on June 7, 2019. I increased my position throughout much of 2019 and 2020, because as I continued to analyze the company and its prospects, I became increasingly confident that the share price was indeed dramatically undervalued. 
Two important factors, based entirely on publicly available information, gave me and many others confidence that GameStop was undervalued in 2019 and 2020. First, the market was underestimating the prospects of GameStop’s legacy business and overestimating the likelihood of its going bankrupt. GameStop, the only major retailer dedicated to gaming, has over 60 million members in its loyalty program and continues to maintain a sizable market share within the gaming industry. Its legacy business, comprised primarily of selling physical video games and related equipment within their stores, was likely to generate meaningful cash flow following the release of new gaming consoles in late 2020. I grew up playing videogames and shopping at GameStop, and I’m looking forward to buying a new console at GameStop. I knew the company had an opportunity to reinvigorate this business by improving customer service for gamers, upgrading its online presence, and offering complementary product lines such as PC gaming and accessories. 
Second, I believed – and I continue to believe – that GameStop has the potential to reinvent itself as the ultimate destination for gamers within the thriving $200 billion gaming industry. The new console cycle provides GameStop a unique opportunity to pivot from a traditionally brick- and-mortar mindset toward a technology-driven business that excels in gaming products, experiences and services. By embracing the digital economy, GameStop can pursue new revenues streams including larger gaming catalogs, digital content and community experiences, online trade-ins, streaming services, and Esports. While I may be the only panelist here today who had faith in GameStop, I was hardly the only person who advocated these points or ones like them. Investors including Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen, whose purchase of GameStop shares and advocacy with the GameStop board helped positively affect the share price in late 2020, publicly expressed similar views. 
I want to pause to note that the investment I made was risky, but I was confident in my analysis, and I was willing to accept the loss if I was proven wrong. My timing was far from perfect, and many of the options contracts I purchased expired worthless because GameStop’s stock price remained depressed longer than I expected. 
I’ve been asked why I decided to share my investment ideas on social media. My investment skills had reached a level where I felt sharing them publicly could help others. I also thought that by sharing my own ideas and accepting critiques, I would be able to identify holes in my analysis. Hedge funds and other Wall Street firms have teams of analysts working together to compile research and critique investment ideas, while individual investors have not had that advantage. Social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and WallStreetBets on Reddit are leveling the playing field. And in a year of quarantines and COVID, engaging with other investors on social media was a safe way to socialize. We had fun. 
The idea that I used social media to promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors is preposterous. I was abundantly clear that my channel was for educational purposes only, and that my aggressive style of investing was unlikely to be suitable for most folks checking out the channel. Whether other individual investors bought the stock was irrelevant to my thesis – my focus was on the fundamentals of the business. It’s worth noting that after five months of streaming, my final stream of 2020 topped out at just ninety-six concurrent viewers, with an average view duration of twenty-five minutes. On Christmas morning I had only 529 subscribers on YouTube, and 550 followers on Twitter. These numbers are tiny. There were rarely more than a few dozen folks on the stream on any night. The reality was people didn’t really care about boring, repetitive analysis of GameStop and other stocks, and that was fine. For those of us who did care, the stream provided us an outlet for refining our fundamentals-based thesis. We were able to analyze events in real-time and keep each other honest. 
Ultimately my GameStop investment was a success. But the thing is, I felt that way in December far before the peak, when the stock was at $20 a share. I was so happy to visit my family in Brockton for the holidays and give them the great news – we were millionaires. That money will go such a long way for my family. We had an incredibly difficult 2020. In addition to dealing with COVID, we lost my sister Sara unexpectedly in June. It brought me tremendous joy to share good news with my family for a change. I am grateful to be able to give back to my community and to support my family, most of all my wife Caroline who has stuck with me through very tough times. 
As for what happened in January, others will have to explain it. Threshold lists, order flow, halting purchases – according to the media these all had a material impact on GameStop stock in January. Here’s the thing: I’ve had a bit of experience and even I barely understand these matters. It’s alarming how little we know about the inner-workings of the market, and I am thankful that this Committee is examining what happened. I believe an analysis of GameStop’s recent price action must start with a discussion of the exorbitant short interest in the stock, as well as an investigation into any potentially manipulative shorting practices and brokers’ reported failures to timely deliver shares and settle trades. 
As for what I expect moving forward: GameStop’s stock price may have gotten a bit ahead of itself last month, but I’m as bullish as I’ve ever been on a potential turnaround. In short, I like the stock. And what’s stunning is that, as far as I can tell, the market remains oblivious to GameStop’s unique opportunity within the gaming industry. </blockquote>

House Financial Services Committee Virtual Hearing On GameStop

WallStreetBets’ Keith Gill Testifies Over GameStop Saga: What I Did No Different Than Discussing Stock At A Bar

Wall Street

By now, most are familiar with the astronomical rise of GameStop (GME) shares in recent weeks, spurred on primarily by retail investors on Reddit’s sub-forum, r/WallStreetBets. A calamitous drop in price followed shortly after the historic run as <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/536272-robinhood-restricts-trading-on-companies-targeted-by-reddit-users?rl=1">various brokerages</a> seemingly caved to the demands of hedge funds that stood to lose billions after heavily shorting GME.
The real story, however, may just be how many in the legacy media chose to vilify this grassroots movement of individual investors who had banded together to rally behind a stock they believed in. The likes of Time, CNBC, and The New York Times all seemed to give brazen support to Wall Street and hedge funds while actively maligning these retail investors by casting their financial gains as some abhorrent or immoral venture. 
Time tried to frame it as an “alt-right movement”
<a href="https://time.com/5933931/gamestop-stock-market-reddit-money/">Time</a> decided to heed the insights of James Cohen, an apparent <a href="https://www.jamesncohen.com/about">specialist in memes</a>, who cast the surge in GameStop shares as some anarchical movement. Cohen insisted that it had “nothing to do with actual money” and was — instead — “a nihilistic approach to disenfranchisement” akin to “the Joker.” 
Taking it a step further toward the absurd, Time sought out the progressive wisdom of Ryan Broderick — <a href="https://influence.co/nofilter/ryan-broderick-garbage-day-newsletter">a former writer for BuzzFeed</a> — to reduce Wall Street Bets into some vicious, regressive horde. Though Broderick cautioned that he didn’t “want to go so far as to say that there’s like a fascist or authoritarian bent here,” he did state that the subreddit employed “the memes of the far right.”
From these so-called experts, Time deduced that the GameStop rally was really just a manifestation of the “alt-right”:
“No matter where you divine the source of WallStreetBets’ anger, it’s difficult not to see remnants of other, often far right, meme movements. The reveling in chaos, the delight in upsetting a system, the pride in being inscrutable to mainstream media, it all reflects many of the <a href="https://mashable.com/2017/05/05/alt-right-memes-france-world/">alt-right meme campaigns</a> that were used in 2016 to tout Donald Trump’s candidacy.”
Frankly, what’s most outlandish is the subtext behind Time’s farfetched summary and analysis. Never mind their erroneous conclusion, apparently any association with Trump and conservatism automatically precludes some kind of arcane and malevolent intent that must be thwarted.
CNBC also echoed the “alt-right” narrative while inadvertently validating the GameStop movement
While attempting to explain the surge in GME shares, Eamon Javers of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-republicans-warn-of-trump-style-populist-revolution.html">CNBC</a> offered some positive insight on the situation almost by way of irony or accident.  He argued that a variety of factors were involved, including a “healthy dose of skepticism of the media, and a belief in fake news.” 
Javers continued: “There are scores of similarities between former President <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a>’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement and the GameStop surge. There is a sense of fighting back against disrespect of the elites, belief that systemic rules have been written to benefit insiders at the expense of regular people, and new internet technologies that widely distribute power that was once held exclusively by a small group.”
If such a comparison is warranted, it actually validates r/WallStreetBets and the GameStop movement. Americans are fed up with elitism and rightly so, especially when championed to exhaustion by so many in the legacy media. That the same media would attempt to paint the movement as the comeuppance of the ignorant rabble and defend the hedge funds all but proves Javer’s point even further, though he clearly intended otherwise in the piece.
The New York Times had the audacity to claim “greed and boredom” was behind the movement
At the peak of the GME’s share price, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/business/gamestop-wall-street-bets.html">The New York Times</a> ran a piece written with an odd mix of condescension and conceit toward mainly average, hard-working Americans by the authors’ very own admission. 
The piece even opened with a detailed description of the retail investors who were taking part in the GME surge:  
“A real estate salesman in Valparaiso, Ind. A former line cook from the Bronx. An evangelical pastor and his wife in Huntington Beach, Calif. A high school student in the Milwaukee suburbs.”
The nexus of the movement — r/WallStreetBets — was written off as a “juvenile, foul-mouthed Reddit page” and emphasized that the bigwigs on Wall Street referred to such individual investors as “dumb money.”
The authors then argued that such individuals were simply “propelled by a mix of greed and boredom” and not a sincere desire to better their lives through a meaningful attempt at financial gain. 
It should also come as no surprise that this particular piece against r/WallStreetBets was co-authored by none other than Taylor Lorenz, who has been described as an <a href="https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship">expert at smear campaigns and cancel culture</a>. Glenn Greenwald refers to the work of Lorenz and the cabal of “NYT’s tech reporters” as “mainstream corporate journalism” who abuse their influence to “demand censorship of spaces they cannot control.” It seems that r/WallStreetBets is such a space.
The Washington Post accused r/WallStreetBets of sexism in a bizarre piece
In an odd but entirely expected attempt to twist the story into something about gender and race, <a href="https://www.thelily.com/women-are-missing-from-the-gamestop-news-experts-blame-this-fratty-subreddit/">The Lily</a> — a product of The Washington Post — published a piece denouncing r/WallStreetBets as a “boy’s club” that dared to have an “avatar of a white man in a suit, with slicked-back hair and sunglasses.”
That the culture of the subreddit eludes new users and has somewhat of a learning curve was seen as a sure sign of something insidious. 
A woman interviewed for the piece complained that the “jokes are often told with a ‘wink, wink, nod, nod’’ and that “[i]t’s never entirely clear whether commenters are serious.” Her frustration forced her to conclude that r/WallStreetBets is “not a fun place to be if you are not a white man.”
Of course, the article conveniently disregards the various subreddits centered around feminism, transgenderism, and a whole host of other progressive “isms” that are equally difficult to navigate for new users, if not more so, given that participation on such subreddits is wholly contingent upon being “one of them.” 
More importantly, the larger context seems to suggest that the goal of legacy media outlets like the Washington Post was to slander r/WallStreetBets and other retail investors in GameStop as sexist, privileged villains. 
The GME rally exposed much of the media as nothing more than corporate shills
The media’s apparent efforts to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ToOGrUQ7ME&amp;ab_channel=TheHill">protect the hedge funds</a> against r/WallStreetBets proved far more absurd than the voluminous rise in GME shares. Various commentators scrambled to explain what was occurring while simultaneously trying to salvage Wall Street by demonizing the many retail investors who had banded together. 
Alex Shepard of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/161126/gamestop-rally-cnbc-reddit-stocks">The New Republic</a> insisted that “[n]etworks like CNBC and Fox Business are in league with the hedge funds they supposedly cover” and that the situation discloses “not just…how the stock market works, but also…how financial media works.”
Shepard detailed the ensuing media chaos in full: 
“This was an argument you heard again and again from the titans of financial media as this chaotic, Reddit-driven assault on Wall Street’s sense and sensibilities progressed over the course of the week: What was happening with GameStop was fundamentally wrong. The free market, after all, had decided that the value of the flailing video game retail empire was around $18 a share; now it had multiplied twentyfold because a bunch of bored gamers with stimulus checks and time on their hands were in it for the lols. CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla took to Twitter to question the merits of fiscal stimulus itself, writing, ‘How does [Federal Reserve Chair Jerome] Powell endorse trillions in fiscal stimulus on a day like this,’ with an image of the booming stock prices of GameStop, the currently shuttered movie theater chain AMC, and other companies being boosted by the subreddit r/WallStreetBets.”
Suddenly, free market advocates in the media were abandoning their philosophical positions in droves. Shepard noted that the likes of <a href="https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1354408089970221056">Joe Kernan of CNBC</a> began arguing for more market regulation when they’d staunchly been against such measures in the past.
Writing for <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/gamestop-and-the-truth-wars">City Journal</a>, Bruno Maçāes put forth a similar argument as Shepard, stating that many in the financial media “rushed to condemn a group of investors for the sin of not caring about the inherent value of a company — as if the world hadn’t long ago forgotten what those words mean.”
Maçāes also pointed out the many economic oddities occurring all across the financial and political world, particularly in light of the pandemic and the strain the collective response has put on so many Americans. That strain, in part, compelled the push behind GME, much to the dismay of the financial world: 
“[T]he U.S. stock market ended 2020 at all-time highs, even as the country entered a massive economic recession…Just as Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon had rushed to ban versions of the world they saw as dubious only a few weeks ago, financial institutions ranging from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the online trading platform Robinhood were now being called upon to restore order and truth. A trader at a large broker in New York, who amusingly requested anonymity, told the Financial Times that we used to live in a world where everyone watched Jim Cramer; now, he said, we live ‘in a world where it is coming from a lot of social media platforms. In many ways, it is a lot more democratized, but it is more difficult to understand how much of it is real.’”
It’s this very democratizing of the markets that so many in the financial media feel compelled to thwart. Sadly, in large part, they succeeded when <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/536272-robinhood-restricts-trading-on-companies-targeted-by-reddit-users">brokerages halted the trading of GME</a> and other stocks heavily touted by r/WallStreetBets and elsewhere. 
Dan Dixon of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/28/anarchy-in-jokes-and-trolling-the-gamestop-fiasco-is-4chan-think-in-action">The Guardian</a> offered a bit more of a neutral take, arguing that much of the mainstream media is clueless and “struggles to explain events like this because the events are arranged to be indescribable, irreducible, by those external to it.” 
Reddit and r/WallStreetBets remain largely foreign terrain to the likes of CNBC, Time, and other media outlets. Aside from what seems to be ulterior motives in support of the hedge funds, they can only ascribe chaos and malfeasance to the circumstances surrounding the surge in GME by virtue of their own willful ignorance.
***
The GameStop rally should have been hailed as a victory for many Americans, especially during the unprecedented financial hardships brought on by the pandemic and the restrictive policies surrounding it. Instead, much of the legacy media chose to castigate and condemn it while also giving shameless support to billion dollar hedge funds.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Reddit Wall Street Bets

How The Legacy Media Tried To Vilify Reddit’s ‘Wall Street Bets’ During The GameStop Fiasco

Readers Pass

Reddit

Some Reddit investors are now showing losses on GameStop stock, but many are refusing to sell their shares, even given the stock&#8217;s sudden tumble, over plans to turn the social media-driven stock surge into a long-term war on Wall Street.
The SEC, though, is concerned that Reddit&#8217;s investors may have been manipulated.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2021/02/04/reddit-traders-have-lost-millions-over-gamestop-but-many-are-refusing-to-quit/?sh=6a45f68f2d8f">Forbes reports that GameStop</a> is now down nearly 80% off its high last week &#8212; a shocking $400 per share, far over its recent low of $10 per share &#8212; and some investors who piled on the stock surge are now seeing losses in the millions, but at least one major Reddit investor told the magazine that the risk could be worth it in the long run.
&#8220;GameStop investors have watched what could’ve been wild, once-in-a-lifetime gains slip through their fingers, many portfolios dropping by tens of thousands of dollars—in some cases, millions of dollars—almost overnight,&#8221; the outlet noted, careful to suggest that most of the r/WallStreetBets investors bought GameStop so low that their portfolios still show gains.
&#8220;In the latest unexpected chapter of the GameStop saga, the majority of the Redditors are upbeat, many declaring an absolute dedication to holding onto the company’s shares, consequences be damned, the opposite reaction you’d expect from investors recently whipsawed through a financial mania, &#8221; the site reports.
&#8220;They see their continued investment as a perpetual indictment of Wall Street, driven by fury over brokerages such as Robinhood and Interactive Brokers limiting their ability to trade GameStop,&#8221; Forbes said. &#8220;They hope it draws the attention of authorities willing to mete out immediate punishment and think out long-term reforms to reduce the advantage institutions have over ordinary investors.&#8221;
The Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to investigate the entire GameStop stock surge incident,<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/sec-hunts-for-fraud-in-social-media-posts-that-drove-up-gamestop"> but Bloomberg reports</a> Thursday that it seems particularly interested in whether fraudulent posts on r/WallStreetBets may have lured investors into purchasing GameStop stock.
&#8220;U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators are combing social media and message board posts for signs that fraud played a role in dizzying stock swings for GameStop Corp., AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., and other companies, according to people familiar with the matter,&#8221; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/sec-hunts-for-fraud-in-social-media-posts-that-drove-up-gamestop">Bloomberg notes</a>. &#8220;The scrutiny is being done in tandem with a review of trading data to assess whether such posts were part of a manipulative effort to drive up share prices, said the people, who requested anonymity because the review isn’t public. The regulator is specifically on the hunt for misinformation meant to improperly tilt the market, the people said.&#8221;
The SEC is reportedly looking at &#8220;bot activity,&#8221; but also at &#8220;professional investors who either took advantage of the Reddit-fueled frenzy or helped hype it&#8221; &#8212; or investors who had an interest in seeing Wall Street short-sellers suffer. They also may be investigating this aspect of the incident because while the SEC does not have jurisdiction over message boards, it does have jurisdiction over individuals, specifically &#8220;people accused of making false claims about stocks online.&#8221;

Reddit Investors Now Taking Losses As GameStop Stock Price Tumbles, SEC Investigating Potential ‘Manipulation’

Video game retailer GameStop is still struggling to stay afloat despite a Reddit-driven stock surge that drove the companies shares up 400% last week. The store chain anticipates millions of dollars in losses when its first-quarter earnings report emerges, but financial analysts now say the GameStop &#8220;short squeeze&#8221; set the stage for much larger battles.
&#8220;The short squeeze last week that propelled GameStop (GME) and other momentum investments popular with the Reddit crowd now appears to be on hold. GameStop plunged nearly 50% Tuesday while AMC (AMC), silver prices, and silver mining companies also fell sharply,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/investing/gamestop-stocks-investing/index.html">CNN reported Tuesday</a>. &#8216;That&#8217;s partly due to trading restrictions from Robinhood and other brokers on how many shares of volatile stocks like GameStop, AMC (AMC), Express (EXPR), and Nokia (NOK) that retail investors can purchase in a single stock at a time.&#8221;
&#8220;The momentum against GameStop picked up early Tuesday, with shares trading down more than 50% after a big drop Monday,&#8221; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/gamestop-amc-silver-stock-market">The Wall Street Journal added</a>. &#8220;Other once-hot stocks&#8211;AMC, Koss, Express&#8211; fell alongside the day-trader favorite, while silver also took a leg down, dropping after the CME slapped additional margin requirements on traders.&#8221;
But big-money investors, initially thought to be only on one side of the GameStop stock surge &#8212; the losing side &#8212; are now weighing in on both sides of the divide, urging a new crop of amateur investors to hold the line, largely in an effort to disrupt what they believe to be a troubling Wall Street trend.
CNN notes that mega-investor &#8220;Mark Cuban urged members of Reddit&#8217;s WallStreetBets community to stay the course with stocks like GameStop.&#8221;
&#8220;I have no doubt that there are funds and big players that have shorted this stock again thinking they are smarter than everyone on WSB,&#8221; Cuban said during a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) this week. &#8220;I know you are going to hate to hear this, but the lower it goes, the more powerful WSB can be stepping up to buy the stock again.&#8221;
The idea being that younger &#8212; and in many cases, amateur &#8212; investors can reverse a dire Wall Street projection.
The<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-gamestop-stock-craze-is-about-a-populist-uprising-against-wall-street-but-it-e2-80-99s-more-complicated-than-that/ar-BB1diiAb?ocid=uxbndlbing"> Washington Post notes Tuesday</a> that GameStop was warned in July of 2019 that it had the power to overcome Wall Street&#8217;s decision to bet against its survival, but its board chose to listen to the experts.
&#8220;Investors had pretty much given up on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/27/gamestop-amc-reddit-short-sellers-wallstreetbets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-id="72" data-m="{&quot;i&quot;:72,&quot;p&quot;:68,&quot;n&quot;:&quot;partnerLink&quot;,&quot;y&quot;:24,&quot;o&quot;:4}">GameStop</a> when [&#8220;The Big Short&#8221; architect Michael Burry], who had made his name battling Wall Street’s biggest names, identified overlooked value in the video game retailer. Failed acquisitions, lackluster management, and customers’ preference for downloading new games rather than buying them in stores had shaved nearly 70 percent from the share price,&#8221; the Post noted. &#8220;But with GameStop trading near its all-time lows, and sitting on roughly $480 million in cash, the board could easily buy back most of the outstanding shares. That could triple the financial payoff for shareholders, including Burry, whose investment firm owned 2 million shares.&#8221;
&#8220;The standpat board ignored Burry. But his letter was the first public indication that the smart guys on Wall Street were missing something about GameStop,&#8221; the outlet said.
Another investor, who saw similar potential, was one of the financial advisors who ended up marshaling r/WallStreetBets&#8217; resources and coordinating the &#8220;short squeeze&#8221; that left Wall Street&#8217;s short-sellers reeling. And the damage continues: the WSJ reports that short-selling positions on the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/gamestop-amc-silver-stock-market/card/JpaghIAlnnfdBJBXV9mQ">targeted companies are &#8220;declining rapidly</a>.&#8221;
GameStop is not likely to survive the surge, even though its stock price is now substantially higher than it was in September when it recorded its low price, $10, but the battle over who controls Wall Street may be just beginning.

GameStop Stock Plummets But ‘Reddit Rebellion’ Sparking War On Big Money Investors

Even though conservatives and liberals alike have sided with WallStreetBets and their push to surge GameStop (GME) stock to squeeze hedge funds on Wall Street, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel dusted up a familiar conspiracy theory: Russia, Russia, Russia.
In the opening monologue for his show last Friday, Kimmel referred to the Reddit army as &#8220;a bunch of amateur investors&#8221; who may or may not be Putin&#8217;s troll minions.
“Have you been following this story about GameStop and the stock market. GameStop, if you don’t know, is a video game store, and like a lot of businesses, they’ve been struggling because of COVID but also because most people buy games online now,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;And yet, despite a sharp decline in sales, over the past six months their stock price has grown by 8000% because a bunch of amateur investors, maybe even some Russian disruptors, who are part of a Reddit community called WallStreetBets decided to buy a bunch of GameStop stock and drive the price up and screw over the hedge fund guys who had shorted the stock,&#8221; he continued.
Kimmel was equally harsh in his mockery of the hedge fund fat cats.
“Now the hedge fund guys are upset and they’re pushing for an investigation and they’re like ‘we can’t have a bunch of randos from Reddit manipulating the market. That’s what we do. They are stealing our thing,'&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very confusing, but I think that I came up with a good analogy. It&#8217;s basically like one of those high school movies, where all the popular football players bet that the weird girl at school will never become prom queen. And then the nerds find out, and they use their computers to make weird girl prom queen. And then the jocks have to pay up. And then the girl uses her psychic powers to kill everyone except Freddie Prinze Jr.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="MAGA Buffoons Take Washington &amp; Reddit Takes Wall Street" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pk-cmB847z0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Also on Friday, Jimmy Kimmel deleted a response to fellow comedian Jon Stewart when he posted in support of WallStreetBets.
“This is bulls**t. The Redditors aren’t cheating, they’re joining a party Wall Street insiders have been enjoying for years. Don’t shut them down…maybe sue them for copyright infringement instead!! We’ve learned nothing from 2008,” tweeted Stewart.
&#8220;RealDonaldTrump? Is this you?&#8221; responded Kimmel in his now-deleted tweet.
Since the GameStop stock surged to unprecedented levels last week, causing a short squeeze and costing hedge funds more than $1 billion in losses, the debate has largely centered around market volatility and whether the Redditers were engaged in a &#8220;pump and dump.&#8221; No evidence reportedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/is-the-gamestop-surge-a-pump-and-dump-no-evidence-indicates-that-yet">exists yet</a> indicating that WallStreetBets and those who spearheaded the squeeze were participating in a “pump-and-dump,” which would be deliberately lying about a stock’s positive value and selling it to unsuspecting investors.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warren-calls-on-sec-to-investigate-potential-market-manipulation-cautions-against-internet-trading-schemes-a-flash-mob-with-money">Elizabeth Warren Calls On SEC To Investigate Potential ‘Market Manipulation,’ Cautions Against ‘Internet Trading Schemes,’ ‘A Flash Mob With Money’</a>

ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” – Season 19

WATCH: Jimmy Kimmel Says WallStreetBets Might Be ‘Russian Disruptors’

Jimmy Kimmel

Silver prices hit an eight-year high on Monday, reportedly as amateur traders turned their attention from shorted retail stocks to shares of silver mining companies and to buying the precious resource, but Redditors, who drove much of last week&#8217;s GameStop stock surge, say they are not fully committed to a &#8220;silver squeeze&#8221; and believe more professional investors might be taking advantage of Wall Street confusion to drive change in a new market.
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55882758">The BBC reports that</a> &#8220;silver rose by as much as 11% to $30 an ounce, while shares in some mining firms were up as much as 60%&#8221; on Monday.
&#8220;The price of silver on Monday jumped as much as 13%, to $30.35 per ounce, hitting an 8-year high,&#8221; <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/silver-price-reddit-day-traders-target-wall-street-2021-2-1030026658">Business Insider noted</a>. &#8220;The surge pushed up shares of silver-mining companies and causing retail sites to limit trading amid the latest attempt of amateur investors to squeeze Wall Street.&#8221;
Those involved in last week&#8217;s stock surges, though, say the decision to target silver is &#8220;controversial,&#8221; and some even admitted to the BBC that they believe the &#8220;silver squeeze&#8221; is being coordinated by Wall Street firms because the &#8220;silver squeeze&#8221; is being driven by stock tips from &#8220;suspect&#8221; sources.
&#8220;On Monday morning, the pivot towards other targets picked up speed, with the hashtag #silversqueeze trending on Twitter. Online financial personalities were cheering on day traders, with bitcoin investor Cameron Winklevoss tweeting: &#8216;If Silver market is proven to be fraudulent, you better believe Gold market will be next,'&#8221; per Business Insider.
&#8220;However,&#8221; the BBC reported, &#8220;some on Reddit expressed skepticism, with one saying they had analyzed comments and posts on the thread Wall Street Silver and found that 80% &#8216;came from accounts mostly created in the last 2 days. Pretty suspect.. who do these people really work for?!'&#8221;
Others noticed that hedge funds like Citadel Advisors were heavily financially involved in some of the targeted silver mining companies, leading r/WallStreetBets commenters to suggest those hedge funds were trying to use Reddit to recoup the losses sustained during last week&#8217;s surge on GameStop, AMC, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Express.
&#8220;By buying silver/going long on silver, you would be directly putting money into the pockets of the EXACT HEDGE FUNDS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF $GME,&#8221; one commenter even suggested.
Part of the concern seems to be driven by a divide between amateur investors on strategy. Part of r/WallStreetBets wants users to continue to focus on shorted stocks like GameStop, which, by Monday, was already falling again, though still trading far higher than it was in September when shares of the video game retailer hovered around $10.
The market for precious metals and other natural resources is less volatile, one expert told BI, noting that to truly have a &#8220;silver squeeze&#8221; the effort to keep silver prices high would need to be sustained into the long term.
<div class="col-xs-12 news-content no-padding">
&#8220;The sudden inflow of money driving this spike will also need to be sustained and repeated if silver is going to run higher,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The basis for Reddit&#8217;s &#8216;silver squeeze&#8217; is flimsy at best. Speculative short-selling in silver has been very tame in New Year 2021, and the commercial side of the industry will only grow its price-hedging the higher it goes. So there just isn&#8217;t the structural opportunity which a heavily shorted small company might offer.&#8221;
&#8220;A short squeeze is unlikely. Unlike GameStop, there are no holders of massive silver short positions who can be forced to abandon them in big enough numbers to send prices through the roof,&#8221; one investor who<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-trading-silver/analysis-reddit-is-coming-for-silver-a-short-squeeze-unlikely-idUSKBN2A12VG"> spoke to Reuters added</a>.
</div>
Redditors, meanwhile, have had success with the retail stocks, driving the price of GameStop up 400% costing hedge funds who had been betting on the stock to fall around $15 billion so far.

Precious Metal Storage At Pro Aurum KG As Analysts See Gold Rally Fading

‘Silver Squeeze’? Precious Metal Prices Hit Eight-Year High, But Redditors Say They’re Not Behind Surge

In the wake of Wall Street <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/big-tech-bites-back-robinhood-suspends-trading-discord-bans-wallstreetbets-over-gamestocp-surge">reeling</a> from amateur investors pouring money into stocks heavily <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszj1flDxl0">shorted</a> by multiple hedge funds, most notably GameStop, SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk challenged Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev about restricting trading to GameStop and other so-called meme stocks.
Unexpectedly, Musk pressed Tenev while on audio app Clubhouse. &#8220;Spill the beans, man, what happened last week? Why couldn&#8217;t people buy the GameStop shares?&#8221; Musk asked. &#8220;The people demand an answer, and they want to know the details and the truth.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-clubhouse-robinhood-ceo-vlad-tenev-interview-gamestop-stocks-2021-2">reported</a> by Business Insider, Tenev echoed a statement from Robinhood. The company, he said, per the report, &#8220;had been forced to temporarily stop users from buying those stocks because the surge had resulted in a deposit requirement of $3 billion from the National Securities Clearing Corporation. Robinhood, which had raised only $2 billion in venture capital, spoke with the NSCC to get that requirement reduced to $700 million, Tenev said.&#8221;
&#8220;Tenev said that the NSCC&#8217;s decision-making process to get to the $3 billion figure was &#8216;opaque&#8217; and that it was hard to know why it settled on that,&#8221; the report added.
&#8220;Did something maybe shady go down here?&#8221; Musk said. Tenev denied the accusation, and noted that the NSCC &#8220;had been cooperative after the initial $3 billion deposit request,&#8221; Business Insider reported.
The Robinhood CEO also said it was &#8220;just false&#8221; that Citadel Securities, a market maker and intermediary for Robinhood, could have influenced the decision from the NSCC: &#8220;There was a rumor that Citadel or other market makers kind of pressured us into doing this, and that&#8217;s just false.&#8221;
&#8220;But wouldn&#8217;t they have a strong say in who got put in charge of that organization since it&#8217;s an industry consortium and not a government consortium, or not a government regulatory agency?&#8221; Musk questioned.
Tenev doesn&#8217;t &#8220;have any reason to believe&#8221; that, he said, adding, &#8220;Then you&#8217;re getting into the conspiracy theories a little bit.&#8221;
During the interview, Musk joked to Tenev, &#8220;Is anyone holding you hostage right now? &#8230; Blink twice.&#8221;
As noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-4-business-moguls-cheering-for-the-little-guys-in-the-gamestop-fiasco?%3Futm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=dwtwitter">The Daily Wire</a>, Musk has encouraged the prospect of small investors beating Wall Street elites at their own game:
<blockquote>“Here come the shorty apologists,” “give them no respect,” “get Shorty,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354891972406865922">tweeted</a> on Thursday in reference to those defending hedge funds that had bet against GameStop.
Musk — who boasts a net worth of nearly $190 billion and recently overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man — <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354890601649610753">described</a> the practice of shorting stocks as “a scam.”
He is also highly critical of Big Tech’s attempts to mute amateur investors’ conversations. “Even Discord has gone corpo …” Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/even-discord-has-gone-corpo-elon-musk-rips-discord-banning-wallstreetbets">remarked</a> after the platform banned members of r/WallStreetBets.</blockquote>
LISTEN:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Elon Musk on Clubhouse Live Stream (High Quality Audio) Full Version" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cba53J1jyPM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-4-business-moguls-cheering-for-the-little-guys-in-the-gamestop-fiasco?%3Futm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=dwtwitter">The 4 Business Moguls Cheering For ‘The Little Guys’ In The GameStop Fiasco</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/even-discord-has-gone-corpo-elon-musk-rips-discord-banning-wallstreetbets">‘Even Discord Has Gone Corpo’: Elon Musk Rips Discord Banning ‘WallStreetBets’</a>

Elon Musk attends SATELLITE 2020 conference

LISTEN: Elon Musk Presses Robinhood CEO About GameStop Fiasco, Restricted Trading

Elon Musk

Wall Street is still <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/big-tech-bites-back-robinhood-suspends-trading-discord-bans-wallstreetbets-over-gamestocp-surge">reeling</a> after amateur investors poured money into stocks heavily <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszj1flDxl0">shorted</a> by multiple hedge funds.
Many financiers were not thrilled about amateur investors’ discovery of speculative trading. Omega Advisors CEO Leon Cooperman told <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/billionaire-leon-cooperman-rips-robinhood-market-says-fair-share-taxes-attack-wealthy/">CNBC</a> that GameStop traders “have no idea what they’re doing.”
Though many wealthy Americans familiar with the financial markets are looking upon the GameStop phenomenon with contempt, others are celebrating recent events as some form of poetic justice.
Here are four moguls who love the GameStop fiasco.
Elon Musk
SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is thrilled by the prospect of small investors beating Wall Street elites at their own game.
“Here come the shorty apologists,” “give them no respect,” “get Shorty,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354891972406865922">tweeted</a> on Thursday in reference to those defending hedge funds that had bet against GameStop.
Musk — who boasts a net worth of nearly $190 billion and recently overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man — <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354890601649610753">described</a> the practice of shorting stocks as “a scam.”
He is also highly critical of Big Tech’s attempts to mute amateur investors’ conversations. “Even Discord has gone corpo …” Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/even-discord-has-gone-corpo-elon-musk-rips-discord-banning-wallstreetbets">remarked</a> after the platform banned members of r/WallStreetBets.
Dave Portnoy
Joining Musk in his criticism of Big Tech and Wall Street, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy posted a four-minute <a href="https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1354848771184750598">rant</a> to social media.
“We are going to crash those stocks so all our hedge fund billionaire friends can get out and not get killed is one of the most remarkable, illegal, shocking robberies in history,” said the entrepreneur. He called for the imprisonment of Robinhood and Citadel executives after stopping “the everyday Jimmy and Joe” from investing “fair and square.”
Portnoy repeatedly expresses frustration toward government officials whose COVID-19 policies resulted in massive job losses. He recently launched the <a href="https://www.barstoolsports.com/the-barstool-fund">Barstool Fund</a>, which has raised over $33 million and saved 196 small businesses from bankruptcy.
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban — multibillionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks and personality on ABC’s “Shark Tank” — hopes that the GameStop phenomenon marks the beginning of a great equalizer on Wall Street.
“I got to say I LOVE LOVE what is going on with #wallstreetbets,” he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mark-cuban-backs-wallstreetbets-i-love-love-what-is-going-on">said</a> on Twitter. “All of those years of High Frequency Traders front running retail traders, now speed and density of information and retail trading is giving the little guy an edge.”
“Even my 11 yr old traded w them and made $,” he added.
Cuban told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that institutional investors should have known the risks of shorting stocks.
“As someone who’s shorted stocks many times… you know exactly what you’re getting into, and you know exactly what the risks are,” he commented.
Kevin O’Leary
Fellow “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary is also pleased with the GameStop debacle.
“Old days where a hedge fund manager could quietly short a stock, then publish negative research and take a bullhorn to it in the media are over,” <a href="https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv/status/1354788578316988417">tweeted</a> the Canadian entrepreneur. “They now run the risk that he power of the crowd will turn on them and squeeze their heads like a teenage pimple. I&#8217;m good with it!”
Yesterday, O’Leary took a moment to troll Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) by <a href="https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv/status/1354904648080101380">purchasing</a> one of her “Tax The Rich” sweatshirts and analyzing her lucrative margins. 
“Inside of every socialist there is a capitalist screaming to get out!” he told the Congresswoman.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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