GameStop and Reddit, the operation lands in Africa
2021 videogame began with the launch of a peculiar financial operation, which saw a large audience of small investors organize themselves on Reddit in order to support the value of GameStop shares.A campaign that has quickly came to life, passing from the pages of the well-known forum to the pages of the main international newspapers, even reaching the US Congress. The action of Reddit in support of GameStop has in fact translated into an uncontrolled increase in the value of the company's shares, at the same time generating fierce protests from the large international investment funds that had instead bet on a progressive loss of value. by GameStop.
Well, several weeks after the GameStop boom, Reddit investors are back on the scene. To celebrate the profits from the operation, part of the community active on the SubReddit WallStreetBets has decided to make a donation to organizations committed to protecting the environment and biodiversity. In particular, the choice fell en masse on Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, an NGO active in the field of the protection of gorillas in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Enthusiastic about the possibility of adopting gorillas remotely, many investors have contributed to the cause, giving the primates names such as "GameStop" and the like to commemorate the financial operation. In a short time, 311,000 dollars were raised for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund alone, but not only: many investors have in fact opted for other NGOs, thus offering their support also to manatees, leopards, monkeys, warthogs and other wild animals!
The GameStop Craze Was Mostly Just Crazy
While financial commentators and regulators can and will argue about what if any regulations should be instituted going forward, it looks as if everybody played by the rules, as they stand.
So did we really learn anything profound? The marketplace of opinions about the meme stock phenomenon has been as volatile as the trading itself: A series of hypotheses about populism, corruption, masculinity, inequality and price bubbles battled for primacy among those of us who watch cable news and consume think pieces.
At the hearing, various members endorsed different theories. “Many Americans feel that the system is stacked against them, and no matter what, Wall Street always wins,” said the Financial Services Committee chairwoman, Maxine Waters, Democrat of California.
The panel’s ranking Republican member, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, suggested that the issue was less that of a game rigged against small-time investors and more the lack of productive assets for them to buy. “We created a world where it’s easier to buy a lottery ticket than it is to invest in the next Google,” he said. “Is it any wonder why the unhealthy dynamics of GameStop happened?”
All in all, some hedge funds got pummeled, but briefly. Some unlucky retail investors got in on the fun too late, taking serious losses. And there were also plenty of life-changing profits taken by people far beyond the usual suspects. That’s a pretty muddied picture.
The most meaningful thing to glean from all of this, according to Josh Brown, the chief executive of Ritholz Asset Management, may be a large incentive change for market behavior going forward: “I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to be that visibly vocally ‘short’ on anything,” he told me. “I think that era has ended where there’s this automatic kneejerk reverence for a $5 billion hedge fund manager with a PowerPoint” pitching other investors on why they should bet against a company.
Though shares in GameStop and fellow meme stock AMC have fallen far short of “the moon” where its boosters hoped it would land, both companies are, for now, trading above their most disastrous lows.