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Wall Street under fire again
As a continued fallout from the recent fiasco on Wall Street, protestors are now rallying to 'occupy Wall Street' in response to the trading app Robinhood shutting down trading for GameStop and other stocks.
In an unusual series of events, Wall Street's wolves were baited by Redditors into a trap. What started as a taunt from Wall Street ended up surging GameStop's stock, which reached a staggering $422 per share.
The unprecedented surge of GameStop's stock led to short-sellers losing an estimated $70 billion. Wall Street investors who were betting on GameStop's stock to tank were left at a loss for words after the sudden surge.
Here are some hilarious tweet that explains what happened:
In the meantime, protestors are gearing up for a full-scale protest against Wall Street yet again.
Robinhood vs. GameStop
Many people are still confused about why a trading app was caught up in the crossfire between Redditors and Wall Street. It is because Robinhood suspiciously halted the trade of a few stocks shortly after the surge.
Many users were not happy with the decisions, and severe backlash followed suit.
For the time being, users can still close out existing positions on Robinhood but can no longer purchase any of GameStop's stocks due to the recent volatility in the market.
A Twitter user posted a detailed explanation as to why Robinhood took this course of action:
Government Intervention
Shortly after the surge, The White House stepped in and stated that it would closely monitor the "GameStop Reddit situation" as its stock prices continued to soar.
Jen Psaki, Press Secretary for the White House, had this to say about the GameStop issue:
"Our team, our economic team, including Secretary [Janet] Yellen and others, are monitoring the situation. It’s a good reminder though that the stock market isn’t the only measure of the health of our economy. It doesn’t reflect how middle- and working-class families are doing."
The development further escalated when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter and voiced her opinion.
GameStop's shares took a nosedive yesterday as trades were temporarily suspended, stopping Redditors and others from buying more shares. Robinhood froze all transition, which didn't sit well for angry buyers and lawmakers.
After this fiasco unfolded, Redditors began organizing to file a class-action lawsuit against the trading platform potentially.
As reported by the New York Post, a Massachusetts resident filed a suit on behalf of all US users, asking that the stock option be immediately reinstated.
Robinhood's CEO, Vlad Tenev, during an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN, defended the company's actions and made the following statement:
"We’ll continue to monitor the situation and may make adjustments as needed. To be clear, this was a risk-management decision, and was not made on the direction of the market makers we route to."
