GameStop: how Reddit amateurs took aim at Wall Street’s short-sellers
"The co-ordinated effort by users of the online forum Reddit to drive up the share price of
GameStop and other companies is designed to turn the screw on short-sellers.
What is short-selling?
It’s a way of making money by betting that a company’s share price will fall.
What has happened with GameStop?
In this case,
Reddit users in a group called WallStreetBets noticed that hedge funds, including one called Melvin Capital, had taken a large short position in GameStop. They decided to punish the Wall Street big boys and launched a co-ordinated buying spree. That began forcing the price up – it is now up more than 1800% – increasing the losses for the short-sellers who had bet against it. They had suffered losses of $1bn already, according to reports on Thursday."
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...s-amateurs-tripped-wall-streets-short-sellers