Itâs not investing, itâs insanity: Wall Street vs Reddit
By Reuters
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Maiya Keidan
New York - On three hours of sleep a night and with no time to eat, one New York-based hedge fund manager overseeing billions in assets called last week the most stressful of his life. Nothing was making sense anymore, he said, as he watched the stock of GameStop Corp soar, while he bet it would fall.
Wednesday was the worst. Fueled by chatter on Reddit and other social media to take on Wall Street, investors used venues like online trading app Robinhood to bid up the brick-and-mortar retailer. GameStop surged 135%, on its way to gaining more than 1,500% in January without any change in its business outlook. Hedge funds scrambled. By this point trading had become so unpredictable across all sectors that funds were forced to dump their winning stocks to balance out their portfolios.
To the brink and back on GameStop: Wall Street vs Reddit bworldonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bworldonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
To the brink and back on GameStop - Wall Street vs Reddit theglobeandmail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theglobeandmail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Anders Melin
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The bounty hunter of Wall Street has finally met his match.
Andrew Left, whoâs taken on everything from drug companies to Chinese real estate firms, said his Citron Research will no longer publish short selling research, ending the firmâs two-decade run as one of Wall Streetâs best-known contrarians.
Citron will instead focus on what may seem like the only logical move in a world of ever-rising equity markets and low interest rates: long bets.
âTwenty years ago I started Citron with the intention of protecting the individual against Wall Street against the frauds and the stock promotions,â Left said in a video posted on YouTube. Since then, he added, the research shop lost its focus: âWeâve actually become the establishment.â