Wall Street has become a wild ride, Robinhood backlash, Cohen vs. Portnoy
This article is not financial advice and I am not a financial advisor.
It has been a wild week down on Wall Street as a Reddit message board has turned the stock market into a frenzy. The subreddit, WallStreetBets, has more than 4.5 million followers and has been the driving force behind the surge in stocks. GameStop (GME), AMC and others have been seeing jaw dropping gains since last week.
The subreddit exploded into the investment mainstream due to aggressively praising GameStop’s stock by its members. Investors saw GameStop’s stock soar more than 400% this week alone. Due to the craze and hype that has stock’s shooting up at an aggressive pace, the platform Robinhood announced restrictions to stocks.
In light of current market volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC and $GME. Read more here.https://t.co/CdJMjGAeFH
— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) January 28, 2021
The popular app is citing “volatility” and they have begun to restrict transactions for certain stocks. The following securities $AAL, $AMC, $BB, $CTRM, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NOK, $SNDL, $TR and $TRVG has been restricted.
What is going on with Wall Street?
There appears to have been an “awakening” when it comes to Wall Street. According to an article on TheStreet.com written by Timothy Collins, retail traders have a plan.
“A large group of retail traders have realized if they work together, using market tools such as out-of-the-money call options or low-float stocks, they can overpower any institution or short-seller in the world, outside of the Fed, of course”, wrote Collins.
This awakening has come at the expense of major hedge fund companies and it is causing a major ripple effect on the market. Social media has been in an uproar over the restrictions Robinhood has placed on their app.
This includes Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy who has voiced his displeasure over the stock trading bans.
Emergency Press Conference – Everybody On Wall Street Who Had A Hand In Today’s Crime Needs To Go To Prison pic.twitter.com/aKr8aPbB3Z
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
It’s very clear that @RobinhoodApp and Hedge Funds like Citadel are saying we’ll take our chances with class action lawsuits and white collar crimes and paying people off to stay out of prison rather than their firms going bankrupt #DDTG
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
Ending in tears
With Hedge funds losing money, the New York Mets are now in the news cycle. Why? Mets new owner Steve Cohen is a hedge fund billionaire who has bailed out one of the funds that has taken a blood bath due to the GameStop and AMC stock bonanza.
Cohen’s Point 72 and Ken Griffin’s Citadel and others are dropping $2.75 billion dollars into Melvin Capital. The owner of Melvin Capital, Gabriel Plotkin, just bought a $44 million home in Miami Beach in November is now needing his billionaire buddies to bail him out.
The office chairman of Omega Family, Lee Cooperman has been very vocal against the retail traders since last June. He went onto CNBC to voice his displeasure happening on the open market.
Leon Cooperman on Robinhood: “This will end in tears.” pic.twitter.com/Y95zMb7O1C— CNBC (@CNBC) June 15, 2020
Fast forward seven months later and Cooperman has seemed to flip the script and is now doing the crying and complaining.
Listen to this incredible crybaby pic.twitter.com/KmJvZpBQ59
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 28, 2021
Cohen v. Portnoy
Imagine seeing billionaire’s go on National TV and cry about having to play on the same team. The pity party that is now happening on Wall Street is sickening.
Cohen has decided to weigh in on social media and had a few twitter exchanges with Portnoy.
I don’t do offline. That’s where shady shit happens. You bailed out Melvin cause he’s you’re boy along with Citadel. I think you had strong hand in todays criminal events to save hedge funds at the cost of ordinary people. Do you unequivocally deny that? https://t.co/x8MQhTXSIW
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
And the Mets fans hated Wilpon 😂 https://t.co/2PhHGh8lP4
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
It has been a volatile month for the Mets owner beyond the stock market. Cohen had to fire his new general manager Jared Porter for harassing a female journalist with lewd and inappropriate text messages back in 2016.
Portnoy is now taking Cohen to task on social media for the world to see in an attempt to get answers to what is going on Wall Street.
Then in your professional option why was trading halted on $amc $gme $nok $sndl $nakd ? I’d be very curious? https://t.co/oIcyVjEkmf
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
As Cohen invests money to bail out other hedge funds, it now has people wondering if he will invest more into his baseball team. Reigning National League Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer has been linked to the Mets for a few weeks now.
The Mets traded Steven Matz to the Blue Jays for three prospects and in the process freed up $5 million plus in salary. Speculation is running rampant if Bauer is the next shoe to drop in New York. Mets fans should now demand that Cohen, who just invested over a billion dollars in a hedge fund bailout to sign Bauer no matter the cost.
The Closing Bell
Chaos is fun, especially when the wealthy who control everything are left holding the bad. Until then, the casual retail stock investors will be thinking of lawsuits against trading companies while I’m just trying to make sense of how to invest.
Me reading all these stock market tweets: pic.twitter.com/3FGpVvhWxl
— Zion Olojede 🇳🇬 (@ZionOlojede) January 28, 2021
THEY ARE CRYING 😭 pic.twitter.com/xfpEsPIV5i
— Lauren Witzke (@LaurenWitzkeDE) January 28, 2021
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