{"id":614,"date":"2021-02-06T12:07:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T12:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=614"},"modified":"2021-02-06T12:11:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T12:11:29","slug":"redditors-prank-on-wall-street-the-gamestop-short-squeeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/02\/06\/redditors-prank-on-wall-street-the-gamestop-short-squeeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Redditors prank on Wall Street: The GameStop Short Squeeze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\" src=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/gamestopreddit.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-617\" srcset=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/gamestopreddit.jpg 800w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/gamestopreddit-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/gamestopreddit-768x481.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>Dado Ruvic\/REUTERS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On January 13th, users (Redditors) on \/r\/wallstreetbets, a subreddit for stock market speculation and investing, discovered that hedge fund corporations were selling \u201cshort\u201d the GameStop stock (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyse.com\/quote\/XNYS:GME\">GME<\/a>).\u00a0<\/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=\"Understanding Short Selling | by Wall Street Survivor\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z1LctxzEREE?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>GameStop, a once popular chain for retail video games, had slowly been declining in business and faced potential bankruptcy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hedge fund corporations such as Melvin Capital were betting on GME share prices going down. Redditors picked up on this and noticed it with publicly available information, data and statistics.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once this information became clear to the masses of \/r\/wallstreetbets many began buying GME shares to increase the value of the stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this resulted in over a 1500 per cent increase in GME stock over the span from January 13th to January 27th.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5205411\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result hedge funds like Melvin Capital lost 53 per cent of its unspecified investment amount on GME according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/melvin-capital-lost-53-in-january-hurt-by-gamestop-and-other-bets-11612103117\">the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the stock continued to rise it reached an all-time highest of $483 USD on January 28th.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/vector-creator-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-615\" width=\"750\" height=\"553\" srcset=\"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/vector-creator-3.png 800w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/vector-creator-3-300x221.png 300w, https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/116\/2021\/02\/vector-creator-3-768x566.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><figcaption>Julien Schuster\/RSJ via Vector Creator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On the same day multiple trading platforms, such as Robinhood, disallowed the purchasing of GME stock. This decision attracted near unanimous criticism and censure from politicians, celebrities and businesspeople across all political spectrums including Mark Cuban, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Donald Trump Jr., and Senator Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a consequence multiple U.S. class-action lawsuits were filed against Robinhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who after tweeting about GME, caused a rise in the share price to increase to over $200 USD.&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>With GME shares plummeting to $63.77 on February 5th at the closing share price, it is still unclear what could end up happening to this stock.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 13th, users (Redditors) on \/r\/wallstreetbets, a subreddit for stock market speculation and investing, discovered that hedge fund corporations were selling \u201cshort\u201d the GameStop stock (GME).\u00a0 GameStop, a once popular chain for retail video games, had slowly been declining in business and faced potential bankruptcy.&nbsp; Hedge fund corporations such as Melvin Capital were betting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","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\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}