Imlisanen Jamir
Internet revolutions have always been fascinating, and the recent financial bloodbath on Wall Street caused by a forum on reddit was one of the most intriguing in recent history.
Last week, a bunch of amateur traders made Wall Street’s finest look like idiots. Complicated for most of us not savvy with how stock trading works, the incidents of last week can be summed up as a result of a rag tag bunch of individuals heeding to the call in a reddit forum to spike up the shares of a nearly defunct retail game outlet chain in an absurdist pursuit of mirth.
From January 25 through January 29, these redditors (retail investors) sent shares in GameStop Corp up 500%, and sent many others skyrocketing too. In three days, many of these stocks gained more than most do in a decade. The hedge funds on the other side of these bets lost billions.
The losses and gains just kept growing but more than that battle lines have been drawn.
A retail investor is a casual participant in the market. It's often used in financial circles especially as a pejorative and it typically refers to individuals who operate on mobile apps or widely accessible brokers. Effectively it's someone who puts their own money into the market and trades on their own behalf. They don't use a major fund; they aren't using other people's money. They aren't an expert and they're just taking some of their own paycheck or their savings and making their own decisions.
Major financial institutions do not view retail investors with respect or even basic human decency honestly. To large institutions, individual retail investors are a threat, a nuisance, a group of idiots who should not be allowed to operate and the sentiment has been focused on ridicule and dismissal of them.
The current world is a compression chamber of anger right now; anger at the system, the pandemic, the policies, the politics; and more than that, the reality of classes in upward mobility. There is deep disdain for the financial infrastructure that crushes most of us every single day in one way or another.
And in an age coated with heightened political as well as civil unrest, the idea of class warfare being personified in one fell swoop while hedge funds and major financial institutions bleed out on the concrete is finding traction.
What started as a reddit forum on the front lines of a somewhat savvy financial play is rapidly becoming a moment in history where retail investors inflict maximum damage on Wall Street. This is being done deliberately, even recklessly, simply for the sake of sending a message.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
