GameStop: As the Dust Settles Does the Little man Really Win?
You, like many others, may be wondering why the general public’s interest in the stock market has peaked suddenly for the first time since the release of The Big Short in 2015. And what does the lowly internet platform Reddit have to do with it?
The unprecedented growth in GameStop shares at the end of last month has for many been seen as a feel-good tale of the little man vs the big. The high street video game retailer tipped for failure made headlines as its share prices rose dramatically from $19.32 per share on the 19th of January to a high of $482 on the 29th. With it came heart-warming stories of people paying off their mortgages and student loans with their gains; achievements that had never seemed possible. Closer to home, even University students have been getting in on the action. Second-Year PPE Student, Joshua Maisey saw his shares reach a high of $260 after following the story on Reddit, the surprising source of all this upheaval.
The chaotic Reddit forum Wall Street Bets is filled with eager amateur traders all trying to work out what stocks would be a good investment for some quick coin. With now over 8 million members, the page is filled with eager-eyed trading enthusiasts pressuring one another to buy and sell their shares at a certain time to maximise their profits. It is, in Josh’s words, “an unorganised mess”. The first trader the forum to find profit in GameStop’s seemingly bleak odds was a user by the name of “DeepF******Value”, also known as “Roaring Kitty”, or Keith Gill if none of those appeal. Gill’s position was simple, he had noted in July that GameStop was not quite the high street failure it was made out to be. He argued the company’s value had been overlooked and those currently shorting GME stock could be open to a short squeeze.
To short a stock is to essentially bet against a company’s success and wager that a said company’s shares will fall in value. Many hedge funds such as Melvin Capital had noted that GameStop had been struggling in recent months and began to adopt a short position. They would, in a nutshell, enter into an agreement with owners of GME stock to borrow their shares and return them at an agreed later date. The funds then immediately sell these shares at a high price and lie in wait for the price of the stock to drop. They then buy these shares back later at this lower price, return them to their owners and pocket the difference. Gill along with other redditors had noted that there was more short demand for GME shares than there was actual stock leaving these hedge funds vulnerable if the price of the shares started to rise. A short squeeze. As you can imagine, betting on a company’s demise can leave a bad taste in many a mouth and soon there was an eager crowd on the forum driving up share prices and giving wall street a run for their money.
Staggeringly from $755,000, Gill’s position peaked at $48 million at the end of January. Melvin Capital lost 4.5bn in assets. The video outlining his early hunch on YouTube has garnered nearly a million views and has been dubbed historic. The story doesn’t end here, however. The surprising turn of events at GameStop hasn’t come without backlash. Trading platform Robinhood suspended trading to protect its customers from market ‘volatility’ causing share prices to fall once again. Some have accused the platform of protecting the interests of institutional investors by out locking retail investors and the company currently faces a barrage of lawsuits. On the other side financial regulators such as the SEC have weighed in warning against manipulative trading activity, as others have accused the redditors of collusion.
As congress moves to investigate, Keith Gill also lies under scrutiny for his previous job as a financial adviser. These revelations about Gill’s past have come at a time when dissections into the demographics of WallStreetBets have revealed much of its member base to be well off ex-financers with similar ties to the corporate world. Along with a looming SEC investigation the little man big man narrative we have come to know hangs in jeopardy.
GME stock inevitably began to fall as enthusiasm for the squeeze began to run out. Our resident university student Josh is more cynical, however. He notes, on Friday, the same day brokers removed restrictions, the stock was up more than 32%. How long this new momentum will last is however is a little murkier. With regards to allegations of collusion, Josh surmises “WallStreeBets doesn’t have any organisational power, it’s just hype that spreads like wildfire”.
This wildfire has captured the imaginations of Hollywood as WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski sold the rights to his life story to RatPac Entertainment. A story dubbed a gripping crusade of outcast vs the establishment. Whether Mr Keith Gill will make an appearance, however, remains undisclosed…
Image Credit: Medium, Telegraph
