@stanleybmanly But this part of our financial sector isn’t in a mess unless you are a fat cat hedge fund manager who has been on the wrong side of the reddit masses.
Gamestop (Ticker GME) was a four dollar stock up until last August. They hired someone who is known for turning companies around, and also there was speculation that they could sell a lot of game platforms (Playstation,, X Box) that had new versions coming out.
But the fundamentals of Gamestop are weak: they are based mostly in malls, which is a dying retail model, and they sell game cartridges, while most big popular games are sold on line to be downloaded.
So GME became a favorite short of some hedge funds. And some reddit traders all said “whoa, this is so oversold, it has to go up”. There in lies the difference of opinion.
Along comes Robinhood, which has greatly democratized investing by giving people an app and fostering low capital investing. In the old days, you would usually have to buy in 100 share increments, and your would have had to $30 to $60 commission to get in and again to get out. Now you pay no commission, and you can buy fractional shares. (Fractional shares: for a $10 investment, you can buy .076 shares of Apple. $10/$131 per share = .076 shares)
And, with the power of social media, a lot of little guys can counteract the machinations of a couple big hedge funds. A lot of people under the age of 35 remember Gamestop with fond memories, it was there go to place to get new games and sell back ones they no longer played.