{"id":565,"date":"2021-02-05T20:07:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T20:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=565"},"modified":"2021-02-14T18:15:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T18:15:33","slug":"reddit-rebellion-tries-to-take-over-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/02\/05\/reddit-rebellion-tries-to-take-over-wall-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit Rebellion tries to take over Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On January 28<sup>th<\/sup>, GameStop\u2019s (<a href=\"https:\/\/ca.finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/GME?p=GME&amp;.tsrc=fin-srch\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/ca.finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/GME?p=GME&amp;.tsrc=fin-srch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GME<\/a>) stock price hit an all-time high of $483 USD, thanks to the help of Redditors.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To put this in perspective, prior to this surge, GameStop\u2019s all-time high was $59.22 in 2007.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It all started on r\/wallstreetbets, a subreddit on Reddit. They felt that Wall Street got greedy again, and had over-shorted GameStop, with 144% of outstanding shares shorted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you short a stock, you believe that a stock is over-valued and the price will go down. These redditors wanted to perform a short squeeze, to a point where the hedge funds betting against GameStop would have to cover their losses.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Investopedia Video: Short Squeeze\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FMRyWZ6CXqM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And the phenomena took down one major hedge fund. CNN confirmed that Melvin Capital, founded by Gabe Poltkin, lost 53%.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though the fund lost money, they still had help. Citadel and Point72, two other hedge funds, gave Melvin a $2.75-billion capital infusion, allowing them to close their short position.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reddit user, Sittinginchairs, said in a thread, \u201cAlso important to remember that the goal here was never to make money, it was to f**k with hedge funds.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sittinginchairs is one of my many Redditors who wanted to take advantage of the situation, and wanted to stick it to Wall Street.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This also attracted celebrities, including Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Gamestonk!! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RZtkDzAewJ\">https:\/\/t.co\/RZtkDzAewJ<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1354174279894642703?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 26, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>From its all-time low on April 3, at $2.94 until January 28<sup>th<\/sup>, it increased 16,329%. If you were to invest $1000 on April 3, you would have left with $163,290.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5296445\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if you bought shares on January 4<sup>th<\/sup>, the first trading day of 2021, you would have made 132.4%, doubling your money, and then some, in less than a month.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5296490\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>On Thursday, Feb. 4<sup>th<\/sup>, GameStop closed at $53.50, dropping over 80% on the week. Despite the massive drop, many on r\/wallstreetbets continue to hold, as they believe the short squeeze is not over.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*Data from: <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/GME\/history?period1=1585872000&amp;period2=1612137600&amp;interval=1d&amp;filter=history&amp;frequency=1d&amp;includeAdjustedClose=true\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/GME\/history?period1=1585872000&amp;period2=1612137600&amp;interval=1d&amp;filter=history&amp;frequency=1d&amp;includeAdjustedClose=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Yahoo! Finance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 28th, GameStop\u2019s (GME) stock price hit an all-time high of $483 USD, thanks to the help of Redditors.&nbsp; To put this in perspective, prior to this surge, GameStop\u2019s all-time high was $59.22 in 2007.&nbsp; It all started on r\/wallstreetbets, a subreddit on Reddit. They felt that Wall Street got greedy again, and had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}