Date Accessed: 28 January 2021
Publication Site: Slope Actuarial
Tag: GameStop
HOW GAMESTOP, BERNIE MADOFF, AND DAVE PORTNOY HAVE METS FANS PANICKED
Link: https://www.sportico.com/personalities/owners/2021/steve-cohen-gamestop-1234621368/
Excerpt:
Less than a decade after the Bernie Madoff scam roped in the Wilpons and supposedly handcuffed the New York Mets payroll as a result, the team’s fans are panicking that new financial market weirdness in the form of bizarre trading in video-game retailer GameStop is going to harm new owner Steve Cohen’s ability to make the Mets amazin’ again.
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Melvin Capital? It has lost perhaps 30% in January alone, as a series of short bets including GameStop turned bad, according to a report by the Financial Times.
In comes Steve Cohen. Melvin Capital founder Gabe Plotkin used to work for Cohen and already had $1 billion of Cohen’s money in his fund. To help Melvin weather its awful month, Cohen and another hedge fund billionaire invested another $2.75 billion into Melvin this month.
That in turn is why Mets fans are now freaking out. One Reddit poster claimed yesterday Cohen’s fresh capital must be gone, burned in Melvin’s desperate need to cover the short bet on GameStop. Suddenly, visions of a super wealthy new owner who could finally spend money on the team were replaced with another Wall Street catastrophe. Mets fans worried while GameStop pumpers teased Cohen.
Author: Brendan Coffey
Publication Date: 27 January 2021
Publication Site: Sportico
GameStop rally is warning that market bubbles have gone mad
Link: https://nypost.com/2021/01/27/gamestop-rally-is-warning-that-market-bubbles-have-gone-mad/
Excerpt:
In the 1630s, it was tulips. In the 1990s, it was Netscape and Pets.com. Later, as we all know, it was housing. Today, the warning sign flashing “danger,” signaling that the stock market has lost its mind, is GameStop.
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And what’s really worrying is that Dow 30,000 is all about this sort of irrational exuberance. Yes, we laugh at $300 GameStop, but is Tesla really worth $880 a share? It isn’t just Robinhood traders working in concert who are driving up company valuations; it’s hedge funds and Wall Street banks research departments and large mutual funds. Because even as we face record unemployment and a slow economy, they can make money that way.
Author: Charles Gasparino
Publication Date: 27 January 2021
Publication Site: NYPost
Opinion: Stop laughing about GameStop’s stock mania — no, really
Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stop-laughing-about-gamestops-stock-mania-no-really-11611760785
Excerpt:
“I get that people think it’s funny when bad things happen to Wall Street types, but this GameStop GME, -44.29% thing is not a joke,” I tweeted. “These are stock traders conspiring to manipulate the markets in open view of us all and using the ‘nah, its for the lulz, and the other side sucks’ as an excuse.”
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You may think it’s funny to value GameStop like it’s 2007 again and hurt some hedge funds in the process, but you might not think the next target is funny, nor the next, nor the next. You won’t laugh when you read the eventual feature about a teenager misplaying GameStop options on his dad’s account and costing them the house, or a first-time investor putting their savings into GameStop just before it all fell apart.
Author: Jeremy C. Owens
Publication Date: 27 January 2021
Publication Site: MarketWatch
How GameStop’s Robinhood Boosters Are Clobbering Hedge Funds
Excerpt:
Investors who sold GameStop short have lost $23.6 billion so far in 2021 through Wednesday, by the count of financial analytics firm S3 Partners. That includes $14.3 billion yesterday, as the retailer’s stock price shot up 135%.
In response to the controversy, Robinhood and Interactive Brokers Group curbed trading on GameStop, AMC, and several others Thursday morning. GameStop shares began to reverse direction. How long the restrictions would last was unclear. Frustrated amateur traders, of course, might just take their business to platforms that don’t limit them.
The pain is intense for these hedge funds. Citron Capital’s Andrew Left, often disparaged on Reddit, just said his firm folded a GameStop short bet, after losing 100% of its money spent on the transaction. Melvin Capital Management has slumped about 30% as the result of GameStop short sales, according to published reports. New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s Point72 fund and Ken Griffin’s Citadel have stakes in Melvin.
Author: Larry Light
Publication Date: 28 January 2021
Publication Site: ai-CIO
GameStop and AMC gyrate wildly overnight after explosive rally
Excerpt:
GameStop and AMC Entertainment tumbled in overnight trading, then rebounded sharply in the premarket Thursday following a meteoric rally amid a retail buying frenzy.
Shares of the brick-and-mortar video game retailer dropped 15.97% in extended trading, following a more-than 130% gain during regular hours. In premarket trading early Thursday, its shares bounced 30% higher.
The movie theater chain sank 26.58% in overnight trading, after shares soared 300% in extremely heavy trading. Its shares were little changed in premarket trading.
The pair have been popular targets in the “Wallstreetbets” Reddit chat room where a wave of at-home traders focus on heavily shorted stocks, pushing share higher and squeezing out short-selling hedge funds.
Author: Yun Li
Publication Date: 27 January 2021
Publication Site: CNBC