LOL The Irony
On Moderation
The subreddit r/wallstreetbets has been manipulating the US stock market, starting off with the struggling video game & electronics store GameStop. All the hedge fund managers have thrown their toys out of the pram over this and Wall Street is currently at war with the subreddit. Other stocks targeted include AMC Theaters (who own Odeon & Cineworld), BlackBerry, Nokia and Kodak. Fallout from this has included the messaging service Discord removing the wallstreetbets server under "hate speech" and trading service RobinHood has de-listed several stocks.
Anger as trading in GameStop shares is restricted
Shares in the games firm dive as major trading platforms try to control frenzied buying.
www.bbc.co.uk
It even has a Wikipedia page;A battle between day traders and Wall Street pros over the soaring share price of GameStop is set to continue.
Shares in the loss-making video games retailer were up around 16% in New York, adding to massive gains seen earlier this week.
Professional investors have lost large sums after betting billions of dollars that GameStop's shares would fall.
But buying by amateur investors, swapping tips on social media sites like Reddit, pushed up the share price.
Shares in GameStop have now risen more than 700% since last week, and regulators are monitoring trading amid fears of illegal market manipulation.
But the amateur investors say they are just playing Wall Street at its own game.
Key to what's going on is "short selling" or "shorting", where a big investment company such as a hedge fund tries to make money by betting that a company's share price will fall.
The hedge fund borrows shares in a company from other investors (for a fee) and sells the shares on the markets at, for example, $10 each, waits until they fall to $5, and buys them back. The borrowed shares are returned to the original owner, and the hedge fund pockets a profit.
GameStop short squeeze - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org