WallStreetBets Is Occupy Wall Street With Teeth

The retail trader insurgency has massive implications for the future of capital markets.

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The retail trader insurgency has massive implications for the future of capital markets.

This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io.

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This week, a collective of foul-mouthed internet memers took down some of Wall Street’s best-known hedge funds. In today’s episode, NLW looks at:

The historical context of how the Great Financial Crisis set the stage for WallStreetBets
How WSB gained infamy during the COVID-19 crisis by correctly predicting the market’s rebound while other investors remained bearish
Why WSB started going after short-sellers, particularly around GameStop (GME)
How WSB forced a short squeeze that required Melvin Capital to call in nearly $3B of emergency capital
Why Robinhood forcing users to stop buying GameStop and other related assets will go down as an inflection point in the history of capital markets

Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images News and WallStreetBets Subreddit

HOST

Nathaniel Whittemore

NLW is an independent strategy and communications consultant for leading crypto companies as well as host of The Breakdown – the fastest-growing podcast in crypto. Whittemore has been a VC with Learn Capital, was on the founding team of Change.org, and founded a program design center at his alma mater Northwestern University that helped inspire the largest donation in the school’s history.