Jan 2021
Price: $17-$483
Squeeze & Halt 🤑🤬
2021 starts off with a ton of events in January.
• Jan 1-11 relative calm
• Jan 12-14 stock almost doubles from ~$20 to ~$40
• Jan 22 closes at $65, high of $76
• Jan 27 peaks at $483
• Jan 31 closes at $325
Meaningful Events
1️⃣ Jan 11 Announcement that Ryan Cohen and two former Chewy colleagues (Jim Grube, COO and Alan Attal, CFO) added to Gamestop board (
WSB post) and
(clean version Gamestop)2️⃣ WSB tone is very much about buy and hold and to the moon 🚀🚀🚀. They like to repeat that they like the stock. DFV posts showing a total unrealized gain of $31 million. (insane!)
3️⃣ On Jan 22 & 27
trading of GME was halted on
trading platforms including
Robinhood which many WSB people used.
•
WSB summary of Jan 27•
CNBNC interview about trading on Jan 27
4️⃣
Hedge fund Melvin Capital loses billions on shorts in GME. Receives $2.75 billion from Citadel, a hedge fund and
market maker. CNBC reports that Melvin Capital sells out of Gamestop. (here and here).
5️⃣ Citadel Securities is a market maker for Robinhood, essentially a middle man.
When Citadel gave money to a hedge fund that lost money on GME trades and stopped executing orders on Robinhood, people cried foul, especially WSB.
6️⃣ 🚨🚨🚨 Trading volume on Jan 22 (a day trading was halted) reached 197,157,946, roughly 3 times the number of shares that exist.🤔 It is very unlikely that every share was bought or sold 3 times. It is more likely that deliberate manipulation occurred.
A trading halt is a temporary suspension of trading for a particularor securities at one exchange or across numerous exchanges. Trading halts are typically enacted in anticipation of a news announcement, to correct an order imbalance, as a result of a technical glitch, or due to regulatory concerns. When a trading halt is in effect, may be canceled and still may be exercised.
A trading platform is the software that enables investors and traders to place trades and monitor accounts through financial intermediaries. Oftentimes, trading platforms will come bundled with other features, such as real-time quotes, charting tools, news feeds, and even premium research.
Robinhood is a trading platform that doesn't charge fees per transaction.
Hedge funds are the way rich people invest in the market. They are less regulated.
A market maker is a firm that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the bid–ask spread, or turn.
Citadel Securities is a market maker.