Stock market drama llama: GameStop shares dramatically rise in price from some Reddit users' trading in it

[Loren Pechtel]

True that is nuts and not normal. Profiting off a company's failure being a normal thing is just as nuts though.

I'm not arguing that short selling should be allowed. I am arguing that this Internet driven volatility shouldn't be allowed. Someone can (likely has) easily taken advantage of this nonsense.

I think this is nothing more than a new variant on pump-and-dump schemes.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

What makes it arbitrary?

Being Reddit driven.

Is it because they specifically targeted these stocks after discovering a large hedge fund holder bet against them? To my knowledge, neither side of this did it on a whim.

Hedge funds are betting against companies that aren't doing well. And those bets don't cause these (50%, 100%) wild swings in value in the period of a day.

Had the hedge fund succeeded in their short sell scheme, it would have cause a 100% swing in value. Downward instead of upward.

 

[untermensche]

Hedge funds are betting against companies that aren't doing well. And those bets don't cause these (50%, 100%) wild swings in value in the period of a day.

Betting where you think you are not allowed to lose to better betters is not betting.